Marie Miller has been in a three-year rut. Her six kids are great,
and she "love, love, loves" her job as a physician's assistant in the Kaiser
ER. But despite regular attendance at New Beginnings Christian Center, what
was, she says, a close and challenging relationship with God got lost somewhere.
"I kept going in case anybody said anything that would help me," she says. "I
sat in the back just listening, listening, but I never heard anything."
Two weeks ago, the 39-year-old heard something. And so did hundreds of others.
Over three nights, from Nov. 28-30, an estimated 2,000 people, most of them
African-American women, packed Maranatha Church in Northeast Portland to hear
something they don't usually get from the pulpit--a woman's perspective. Prophetess
Juanita Bynum, a leading female evangelist and top-selling Christian self-help
author, was the keynote speaker for the Voice of Deliverance Conference 2000.
Miller prayed Bynum could give her what her regular pastor hadn't: a spiritual
kick in the pants.
"I come to fix situations you can't deal with, that your momma can't deal with,
that your best friend can't deal with," Bynum told her audience inside the airy,
modern sanctuary. "And your deliverance is as close as the next hallelujah out
of your mouth."
It's often noted that 10 am on Sunday is the most segregated hour in America.
It also may be the most sexist. Although the majority of churchgoers are women,
only half of all American denominations ordain women clergy. You're more likely
to find women employed as butchers, electrical technicians or metal workers
than as ministers. According to the federal Department of Labor, more than 85
percent of the ordained ministers in the nation are men. And even ordained women
don't always reach the pulpit.
Although women are senior ministers at a couple of prominent downtown Protestant
churches (First Unitarian and First Congregational), none have the post in large
evangelical Portland churches. Rather, women serve on the pastoral staff--primarily
in children's ministry, women's ministry and education. Even Bynum remains inside
the traditional boundaries of church roles--a traveling evangelist, rather than
pastor of a congregation.
Whether Bynum would want to work from the pulpit rather than the floor is unclear.
She is critical of the institutional church's inability to meet women's spiritual
needs. "You often go to church and feel empty," she told her Portland listeners.
"I'm trying to give you an experience. You've been in church all your life,
but I want to take you way out in the spirit." And for three nights in Portland,
she did just that, pacing Maranatha's floor in a dark conservative suit, using
anecdotes and old-fashioned preaching to hammer home her message of deliverance.
Marla Frederick, a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University studying contemporary
African-American women's religious experiences, says the current emphasis among
women evangelists is "away from religiosity, the routineness of going to church"
and "on spirituality and relationship with God." In that respect, Bynum fills
a gap between the self-help and Christian markets.
Bynum's frank talk about her past--a nervous breakdown, anorexia, bad relationships,
some serious lust--sets her apart from the mostly male crew of prominent evangelists
like Benny Hinn, while her biblically based message of deliverance distinguishes
her from secular and generically spiritual self-help authors such as Iyanla
Vanzant or Oprah. And it's found
a huge audience.
Bynum was the first African-American evangelist to have her own show on Black
Entertainment Television network. Her most recent book, No More Sheets,
a Rules for evangelical Christians, is the fifth most requested title
from Central South Christian Distribution, the nation's largest distributor
of Christian books, music and videos.
Deliverance, Bynum says, depends upon obedience to God's will, not your own.
"You have to ask God, 'What do you need?' And say, 'I don't care if my house
is upside down, marriage a mess, kids on drugs--I'm gonna bless your name.'"
In a post-feminist age, Bynum's insistence on conformity may sound like a negative
throwback, but within this language of obedience is a message of empowerment.
"People always want to give an excuse why they are not following God," she told
her audience. "'Can I still watch a few more pornos? Curse just a few more times?
Gossip just a little bit more?' You cannot go with God until you can look your
past in the face and say, 'Uh-uh.' Until you're ready to face your baby's daddy
and say only, 'Send my child support.'"
For Renee Ward, associate pastor at Allen Temple CME, Bynum's writings "encapsulate
in blunt honesty a lot of experiences the average woman, and especially African-American
women, deal with." Ward, founder of Chrysalis Ministry for victimized women
and communications manager for Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, says Bynum "calls
attention to where we thought we have no power to control or change a situation,
and, in fact, we do through God."
Christine Baker, 26-year-old pastor of a single mothers' group at New Beginnings,
says Bynum "was really good at emphasizing you've got to get on the ball
discovering and developing your God-given opportunities." It is,
in other words, What Color Is Your Parachute? set to the rhythm of the
Bible.
Listening to Bynum, Miller said, didn't end her rut but it did put her at greater
ease. "She gave me
a purpose for my turmoil," she said. "Now it's OK because there's a light at
the end of the tunnel and because my struggle can help somebody else down the
line. The church and the secular world often try to knock people off track.
People like Juanita Bynum are there to put you back on track."
