I was listening to a program on National Public Radio recently entitled “Motherhood in the Margins.” This program, a segment of the daily program Odyssey, spoke about the relationship between the archetypical maternal image and the reality of Motherhood in the USA. Two classes of women were discussed, those who chose motherhood on the margins and those who found themselves on the margins by virtue of their ethnicity or economic status. Here, I am referring to Mothers who are the descendents of slaves.

Annelise Orleck, an historian and the author of an upcoming book on the fight of poor women to assert their rights, quoted the former senator of the Louisiana, Russell Long, a Southern Democrat. She claimed that he actually said that funding welfare would make it more difficult for people such as himself to find domestic help since these poor Black Women would have no incentive to go out and get a job.

This quote was given as an example of the double standard that is applied to poor Black Women. They are not valued for that most important duty of raising their own children. When they do take the initiative to find work or education to better themselves, they do not have the support of our society. This is help that they need in raising their children so that these children will be neglected and left to the vagaries of ghetto life.

My own sister was a welfare mother. Had she not had the support of our family, she could never have continued her education, raised her son and developed a successful career in Information Technology. Even though she was a welfare mother, she came from a family of privilege. My Father is a successful retired Methodist Minister and my Mother is a retired registered nurse. They both fought the good fight to raise our people out of the shadow of poverty and prejudice. Sometimes the price they paid was dear. Sometimes that price included the loss of a business. Sometimes that price was disrespect from the systems and people that they supported and served. Sometimes that price was the suffering of their children at the hands of white society.

Though Russell Long served in the congress between 1965 and 1987, it would seem that his sentiments still exist today. Even now, the congress is debating provisions in the latest version of welfare reform that would require poor women to work at least 40 hours a week before they can receive support from the state.

Given my statements here, one might think that I am advocating the expansion of welfare for the poor. This is not true. I am thinking about the working poor of New Orleans. Many of these poor Black families sustained themselves on minimum wages performing the vary work that Russell Long complained would no longer be done. These were hard working families that paid their taxes and owned their homes. Now those modest homes, some of which were in families for generations are no more.

I too have felt hunger. Though I did not choose hunger so that my own child could be satisfied. I have done without clothing or shoes, but not so that my child would have clean warm cloths to wear to school. I have known poverty because of my determination to fulfill my dreams. This is a privilege that many of the Descendents of Slaves in New Orleans did not have.

At the time that I was listening to Odyssey, hurricane Katrina was of no consequence to me. Later, as the tragedy unfolded, I was so self-absorbed in my career and personal life that I was not aware of what was happening. I was not aware that those same mothers who are denigrated for either sponging off of the good graces of this fine government of ours or disgracefully neglecting their children, were making life and death choices that should never have been made.

These mothers, who had the audacity to affirm life beyond the despair of urban poverty, who would have been condemned by faith based organizations had they aborted their children, who were forgotten by the faith based organizations in the affluent parts of our nation, were watching their children starve and their elders die. These same organizations, such as the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that the government was touting as the salvation of the poor in times of hardship, were nowhere to be found as the waters were rising and the elders were dying and sons and daughters were giving in to anger and despair.

Were it not for the goodness of the people of our nation, many more might have died.

Where was R. Albert Mohler and his Southern Baptist Theological Seminary when his good friends in Washington were cutting the funding for the levees? Where was he when FEMA was turning back the truckloads of water and food? Where were he and his colleagues when the only job a poor black man could find in New Orleans was shining some white man’s shoes? Surely, he and his pseudo-religious cadre of political activists and self-proclaimed king makers could have advised our deeply religious and committed president of his responsibilities to the people of this nation.

Who will iron the shirts of the affluent businessmen who come to New Orleans to watch the buxom young college girls bearing their breasts on Bourbon Street? How can we as a Nation trust the promise of an American Dream that has become a nightmare?

The invisible people are visible now. We see them dying on television and crying for help outside of their refuge of last resort, a refuge that became the closest approximation to Hell on Earth.

These people who are the strongest of the strong, bearing the power and glory of our Nation on their beautiful black backs, have been dehumanized, denigrated and had the vary foundation of their culture destroyed. This destruction did not come with the storm surge of Katrina, it came with the missionaries and Imams like a scourge through the cradle of humanity. It came by torture and slavery and the demonization of that which we held most sacred.

It is so ironic that these same people run to the Great Religious Edifice of Protestantism.

Having seen these so-called religious organizations from the inside, I find them a place of such great hypocrisy that surely they must leave Martin Luther spinning in his grave. These same religious organizations are supported by the spiritual power and faith that is the legacy of the culture that Catholicism and Islam have sought to destroy. Yet the religious establishment in our Nation continues to carry on with the intolerance and ignorance that was perpetrated in the past by the same religions over which they claim such moral superiority.

Who is the champion of the righteous in our nation? Why George W. Bush, of course.

Even so, the Descendents of Slaves continue to go to church and be filled with the glorious power of the Holy Spirit that the self same religious establishment thinks of as little more than allegory and myth.

The Descendents of Slaves truly must love this so-called great nation of ours. If they did not, surely their children would have done much more than steal sustenance from the abandoned shops and storefronts of those who had left them behind to die in the filth and squalor. They would have strapped bombs to their bodies and marched into the halls of power and said in their last breaths, I exist! I have meaning! I have purpose, if that purpose is only to affirm that I exist.

Do not think that I am speaking of those who sought to take advantage of the lawlessness in the aftermath of the storm and flood. Nor am I speaking of those of murderous intent who had completely given up hope. This is not about those that lashed out at their own people or fired upon those seeking to save them like some injured animal seeking to protect itself from the scavengers that were sure to come.

No, I am speaking of the children who were raised by their Grandmothers, Grandmothers now dead because they could not get food or insulin. I am speaking of the babies that may never see their Mothers and Fathers again.

Yes, the children of slaves love this great nation of ours, and yet the question still remains, when New Orleans is re-built and the affluent have returned to claim the land once owned by the disenfranchised, who will iron their shirts?

NPR is running a column called “Taking Issue” that “…features original essays on newsworthy and controversial topics.” I read the article by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Ph.D., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in which he advocates the concept of intelligent design.

Based on the content of his article and the additional readings of his weblog and the subsequent New York Times article, I must conclude that Mr. Mohler is a steadfast creationist who believes in the literal reading of the book of Genesis as fact.

I personally find no objection to the concept of reading the inspired teachings of the ascended masters literally. I do take exception with his interpretation though. Many of his statements with regard to Genesis are based on a set of axioms that I do not agree with.

I first must state that I have no idea what axioms Mr. Mohler holds as the basis of his opinions. I can only speculate as to what these are and this is what I have inferred from his responses to the questions posed on evolution.

1. The true nature of Humanity is defined by the physical characteristics that can be measured by modern science.

   I come to this conclusion based on the idea that Mr. Mohler presents that the time frame of the Bible is limited to approximately 6000 years. He has not stated this in his writings on this subject as published in the links in this essay, but this is the usually accepted calculation. Time must therefore be measured based on an arbitrary value for the length of time between human generations. This would therefore limit the length of time that a human might live.

   He must also assume that the nature of humanity is limited to what he himself can perceive. God’s creation of us would therefore be limited to what he and his colleagues can conceive based on their own limited experience.
   
   

2. There is a well-known and ultimately true definition of intelligence.

   How could one define intelligent design without having an accepted idea for what intelligence is? That concept of intelligence would again be determined by the accepted dogma of he and his piers.
   
   

3. The design of God’s creation is well known.

   It is again difficult to postulate intelligent design without also making a statement about the design itself. I can look at the design of an automobile or a building and make a statement about that design because the manifestation of that design is within the scope of my perceptions and intellect.
   
   

Given these three axioms, it is logical that a pious man will come to the conclusions that Mr. Mohler has. My opinion is that these axioms are invalid based on the text of the Bible itself, as well as basic common sense with regard to our limited concept of the unknowable character of God.

The first axiom, which refers to the nature of humanity is refuted by Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them.”

First of all, in order to conceive of the nature of humanity you must be able to comprehend the nature of God’s Image. Aside from the basic ambiguity of the translation (was it the image of God as in a visual representation or the image of God figuratively?) one must be able to comprehend either the nature or the mind of God.

As for the mind of God, I quote the New Testament, Romans 11:33-34 “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!  For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor?” As for the nature of God itself, I think that it should be obvious to all that the limited context from which we speak must be incapable of divining that nature. I must therefore conclude that the first “axiom” is invalid. We just don’t have enough information to know what was actually created to understand the nature and character of that creation, let alone how that creation took place and when.

What is intelligence? Is there a clear definition of it. Can we state it’s character without equivocation? I would state that any concept, when sufficiently understood, can be simulated by a computing device. Since we cannot simulate intelligence, it therefore follows that we do not sufficiently understand it.

The last axiom is subject to the same argument as the first. In order to understand the design of God, you must have an understanding of what God had in mind. Again, this is not possible and “The Bible Tells Me So!”

Stipulating the above facts, one must conclude that intelligent design is impossible to prove, since the vary basis of the argument is either ambiguous at best or just outright impossible based on the fact that we could not possibly understand God because that would ultimately lead to a limitation of that which cannot be limited. It is logically incongruent to place a limit on the infinite. Therefore any argument for “Intelligent Design” is invalid on its face without even presenting any scientific theories to the contrary.

I know the Mr. Mohler and his colleagues can do better. They just need to THINK before they open their mouths.