The Revs. Emmett G. Price III and Irene Monroe joined Boston Public Radio on Monday for their regular segment, All Revved Up. Price and Monroe discussed Jesus Christ as a radical politician, the 50th anniversary of the Moynihan Report, and Pope Francis.
The following questions are paraphrased, and the Reverends' responses are edited where indicated [...].
Brendan Ambrosino wrote in the Boston Globe about how radical Jesus Christ's politics really were. What do you guys make of this?
Monroe: One of the things that we need to consider his life on the margins, and the events that leads to [that]. I'm asking that we be creative with our theological construct. I think we should move away from 'Jesus died for our sins,' as opposed to 'Jesus died because of our sins.' [...] When you set up this notion of the 'sacrificial lamb,' 'the suffering servant,' to be quite honest there's nothing redemptive about suffering. While suffering really points to the need for redemption, suffering in and of itself is not redemptive.
Price: Jesus stood for the underdogs, and the underclass, and the underrepresented, and those who have been victim of violence. I love that old hymn — I think it was a 17th century hymn — 'Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free?' The response was, no, there's a cross for everyone and there's a cross for me. So, to the politicians who invoke the name of Jesus, I think they need to invoke the actions of Jesus, and actually do the work.
Monroe: We have to look at the fact that the instrument of execution of the Romans was a cross. Similarly, the lynching tree was black men's cross. [...] I find them synonymous. [...] If we look at the bodies and faces that are on the cross today, those are the people that are on the margin.
The 1965 Moynihan Report was an effort by then-Senator Patrick Moynihan to tackle the root causes of poverty in African American communities. This year marks the 50th anniversary of that report. What do you make of the conclusions that report drew?
Price: [Moynihan] had this interesting idea of what would happen if we took all the bills and legislation that were going on around trying to bring equality and justice for African Americans, and put them all together in one fell swoop. He had some critical flaws in his thinking, but I think [he was] altruistic in his big idea. [...] Certain snippets of the report got leaked to the media, and in a quick fail-storm, people responded to the quick snippets. So, many people didn't read the whole 78-page report because they didn't have access to it.
Monroe: He could've corrected that narrow interpretation of his report. The outcome of that report was pretty damaging. We got this whole [idea of] blaming black women being the head of households. [...] By the time we got to Ronald Reagan we got the "welfare queen." We needed to look at the systemic issues that brought about the demise of the black family. It all turned on black women. It also disrupted and caused some difficult relationships between black women and black women in our community. It brought about a radical, militant kind of black power movement that really re-inscribed that black men had to be the head of the household, and women needed to take a back seat.
Price: I'm in no way defending the document. I think the entire scenario is of interest 50 years later as we still wait for the national action.
Pope Francis has been told by his doctor to lay off the pasta, pizza and other carbs. As avid Pope-watchers, what do you to make of that directive? And, what do you think of his Easter Mass message of peace above all else?
Price: I'm excited, and I think the clever line this week is from Cardinal Timothy Dolan who told the Pope, 'Get a new doctor.' How can you go wrong with pizza? I think Pope Francis' emphasis on peace, particularly during this time of year, was brilliant. [...] I think he should get a new doctor.
Monroe: He looks like Santa Claus. He's ballooned up! I think that the Pope and the pizza little kerfuffle is just too cheesy, okay? And I also want to say that if Francis goes into the pizza business, this is another way for the Pope to be rolling in the dough.
>> Revs. Emmett G. Price III and Irene Monroe join BPR every Monday for All Revved Up. Price is a professor of music at Northeastern University, and the author of The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture. Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist who writes for Huffington Post and Bay Windows.
