Mike Tripped with Allah

I just finished reading Michael Muhammad Knight’s latest book, Tripping With Allah: Islam, Drugs, and Writing. As is very typical with MMK’s work, I was usually captivated, somewhat enlightened, and, at times, extremely confused. We’ll start with what I learned.

Knight’s latest work taught me a great deal about the history of drug use in religious practice, the basic background of the Santo Daime faith, and some parts of the slave trade that I don’t remember covering in history class. I also learned about how Transformers and Dinobot Island can provide allegorical framework for just about any discussion about society and religion… and those discussions that don’t fall into the Transformers realm seem to always relate to the world of pro-wrestling… but I digress.

In fact, digressing is a major part of MMK’s book, as well. In this hybrid Fiction/Non-Fiction, MMK oft employs a stream-of-consciousness prose style, albeit with structure. The digressions can be distracting, at times, but typically just provide added insight and/or quippy anecdotal information.

Back to the review, I guess… so… in addition to learning about the Transformers, drugs, and the slave trade, I found that MMK continues to find better ways to say things that I’ve thought and said, as I’ve noticed in much of his work. One such example that had me on the hook was:

Plenty of Americans are unable to conceive that their country has its own underground, an if they do, they fail or refuse to admit that the underground, the counter-narrative, is just as “American” as the patriots’ mythology on top. So the T-shirts and bumper stickers tell me, “Love it or leave it,” missing the obvious fact that I do love America, maybe more than they do-but my America is also the anti-America, the lineage of Shakers and Nat Turner and William Lloyd Garrison and Emma Goldman and the Weathermen. Loving America doesn’t meant that you buy into that aboveground story of freedom and democracy or that you want to see Ronald Reagan’s head on Mount Rushmore.

Like I said, as he always does, Knight found ways to connect with some the very thoughts going through my head.

So, what is this book, really? Great question. It’s not a Hunter S. Thompson book, first and foremost. The back of the book jacket is way off-base when it calls the book “a road book in the tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey” and whoever called MMK “the Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature” was just looking to get their quote in other people’s reviews (oops, mission accomplished, I guess). MMK is no drug guru… and THANK ALLAH! Knight is level headed and not a wastoid, so calling him Hunter S. Thompson is an insult.

While it’s not some Islamic Fear and Loathing, it does deliver one of the most whacked out drug hallucination descriptions in print. That said, there were points where I thought there would be a let down, but then… BAM! There it was… and in true MMK fashion, it involved graphic depictions of sexual acts. But the vision was something more, it was something that reframed and redefined his faith.

So, through this rambling “review”, here’s what you need to know… this is a good book. But, I’m not so sure that you should start here if you’ve never read MMK. Then again, there’s nothing wrong with diving in head first.

PS. I kinda want to drink Ayahuasca now. Anyone want to front me a couple grand?

Hatred Sucks

(This originally posted a couple of months ago!)

I hate hate! If there is one thing that truly brings forth a feeling of rage in me, it’s hatred. Write that on the table, I’ll start this blog with some brief bios and histories so you can get the full picture.

To begin with, who is Lord Jamar?

Lord Jamar (born Lorenzo Dechalus, September 17, 1968 in New Rochelle, New York) is a emcee and actor. He is a member of the hip-hop group Brand Nubian, which formed in 1989. As an actor, he is best known for his role of Supreme Allah on the TV series Oz. He has appeared on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Third Watch, and The Sopranos. He has also done production work for artists such as Dead Prez, Buckshot, Shaka Amazulu The 7th and Tom Browne. He released his debut solo album The 5% Album (an album dedicated to the Nation of Gods and Earths) on June 27, 2006. He also appeared in a much talked about episode of The (White) Rapper Show in which he criticized contestant John Brown for naming his company Ghetto Revival. Like his onscreen character on Oz, Jamar is a member of the Nation of Gods and Earths.

Jamar is a core member of Brand Nubians, a socially conscious trio of rappers that formed in 1989. Jamar is a Five Percenter, a complex offshoot of the Nation of Islam. To many, their doctrines would sound no more legitimate than Scientology, but the group has a decorated history and following, including many of the founding fathers of hip hop (Jamar included).

Another player in today’s story is Michael Muhammad Knight. If you are my friend, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that MMK is my favorite author right now. His exploration of his own faith (Islam) has inspire my exploration of mine (Christianity). In fact, his writing is part of the source material for a sermon I’ll be delivering later this month. MMK is certainly considered a heretic by many, if not most, of the Muslim world. He has embraced groups like the Five Percenters that the mainstream Muslim faith community has rejected.

As MMK is one of my favorite writers, I follow his VICE column and read earlier this week Michael Muhammad Knight’s take on Lord Jamar’s comments of Kanye’s kilt. I, honestly, knew nothing of Jamar’s comments or even Kayne’s kilt prior to reading this piece, but I spent some time on Jamar’s twitter and on Google to see what the story with Kanye’s kilt and Jamar’s comments were about…

It all started with this tweet… “Y’all Cee where the Kanye sh*t is taking us right? #halfafag.” This tweet Jamar has since explained doesn’t make him a homophobe. Brand Nubian has made homophobic jabs in lyrics before, but these Kanye attacks, including a new diss track that I don’t intend on listening to anytime soon, seem to be on another level.

I’m not an expert on the Five Percenters, but I do find their culture fascinating. Lord Jamar, as well as other Gods (what Five Percenters call themselves and each other), have been jumping at MMK for his piece saying that Jamar was well within his right and that “Gods don’t play that gay shit” (a direct quote). And, that’s bullshit.

I don’t care if it’s Westboro, orthodox Muslims, or these Five Percenters, blaming hate on your religion is bullshit. If your higher power is a bigot, then your higher power is full of shit. God is bigger than rules and walls that we try to build around Him. Jamar can indicate that he’s not a homophobe claim that his views on sexuality are the views of “true Gods” just like Jerry Falwell could say that 911 happened because God was exacting his wrath on the gays… any way you slice it, it’s called hate.

So in other words, grow up. In other words, God is bigger than the box you put Him in. In other words, Jamar is a bigot. Period.

The Bible Isn’t Perfect

This is not exactly a review, but more of a discussion. It originally appeared one of my old blogs, but with all of the discussion on marriage equality, some of what this book had to say may be especially applicable right now.

Timothy Beal’s The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book… Some people may not like what it has to say, but I found it enlightening, well-researched, and perhaps, life changing. Reading, understanding, and challenging ourselves by what Beal has to say in this book can lead to a maturing spirituality, one where faith is defined by possibilities rather than the walls of the Pharisees.

Strict black and white interpretations of scripture can be lacking, even dangerous. In the book, one such example of the dangers of taking a single scripture literally and forming one’s whole theology around it is the story of Aaron’s son Phineas. Phineas executes an Israeliste man and a Midianite woman. He is praised by God through Moses for eradicating the Midianite influence. Taken literally and out of context, a group called the Phineas Priesthood in America has used this story to justify taking violent means to discourage interracial relationships.

This is but one example of how people taking scripture too literally can be very dangerous, but there are many. An example in the spotlight right now is the defense of “traditional Biblical marriage” and how it is taking away the legal rights of many Americans… arguments that the “Bible is clear” about homosexuality fail to acknowledge contradictions, contexts, and other nuances. In fact, direct translations refer only to “laying with a man” and don’t address lesbianism at all. Of course, the verses used to point out how the “Bible is clear” are taken as the word of God, but the verses surrounding them which include other laws of cleanliness are not. The Bible simply is NOT clear on this, despite what the televangelists want to tell you. (Side note: Those who read my blog will note that my piece on the Chick-Fil-A debacle never appeared. I decided to forgo this piece right now, as my emotions on this are still high and the impending elections are causing more tensions than I care to deal with at the moment.)

These dangers are only a small part of the picture. What’s most important for Believers, like myself, is to understand the history of the Bible and understand that the treasured notion of Biblical inerrancy is a modern concept that has numerous flaws. Before I can explain what Beal is getting at with this, I should first define what Biblical inerrancy means. In short, it’s the belief that all scripture is right, correct, and totally free of error. In other words, it means that the Bible is perfect.

But the history of the Bible pokes many holes in this theory. How did the Bible come to be? I think many of us seem to think that there is an old book that scholars translate to our modern language, but that’s not even close to the truth. There is no such thing as an original copy and the old scrolls we have were already copied from copies of copies of copies. In fact, there are so many different sources, no one could ever pin them down.

The Bible does contradict itself. The Bible does have questionable content. The Bible was written by man. Does this devalue the Bible? No, not at all. But it should be taken into consideration when we read. Christianity thrived long before there was a Bible. Jesus’s love conquered sin and death without their being some book to tell us so. The Biblical writings are there to enhance, guide, and aid our faith, but they are not the literal word of God. In fact, Beal does a great job in explaining that this concept is only about 100 years old. Before it was never really considered that the Bible was the literal word of God.

Some will probably read my blog, discount Beal as a heretic or a liberal, and scoff. I urge you not to. I urge you to give this book a chance. If nothing else, it can help you understand why you believe what you do, as neither Beal nor I would urge you to take what he says are the Gospel truth without thinking about it and challenging it.

The late philosopher Jacques Derrida has a wonderful phrase; “impoverishment by univocality.” Meaning that when we try to make a text univocal, “one voiced,” of one voice with itself, we deprive it of its richness.

Please comment, challenge, and think. I welcome it all and so does Beal.