Abstract
Bishop T. D. Jakes consistently invites Pastor Donnie McClurkin to participate in his conferences, thus the “Bishop” has conferred his blessing upon McClurkin. For Jakes, McClurkin’s triumph over the obstacles of the “generational curses” of his life imbues him with “a very unique and strong anointing” that greatly impacts “his incredible music ability.”1 It is not, however, his music that has created controversy for McClurkin. He is an internationally known Gospel singer who publicly acknowledges his struggle with homosexuality, and teaches other people that “homosexuality is a choice that they can overcome.”2 Rather than embracing a homosexual identity, he identifies homosexual desire and the attending sexual acts as evidence of sexual brokenness rooted in childhood trauma.
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Notes
Stephanie A. Frederic, The Donnie Mcclurkin Story: From Darkness to the Light, DVD, Image Entertainment, USA, 2004.
Bil Carpenter, Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2005) 283.
Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999) 6.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1st American ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978) 43.
Johnnetta B. Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities, 1st ed. (New York: One World/Ballantine Books, 2003) 115.
Richard Dyer, White, (New York: Routledge, 1997) 17.
Delroy Constantine-Simms, “Is Homosexuality the Greatest Taboo?,” The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities, ed. Delroy Constantine- Simms, 1st ed. (Los Angeles: Alyson Books, 2001).
Cheryl Sanders, “Sexual Orientation and Human Rights Discourse in the African-American Churches,” Sexual Orientation & Human Rights in American Religious Discourse, eds. Saul M. Olyan and Martha Craven Nussbaum (New York: Oxford UP, 1998) 180.
Peter J. Gomes, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, 1st ed. (New York: W. Morrow, 1996) 170.
Jennifer L. Morgan, “‘Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder:’ Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology, 1500–1770,” Skin Deep, Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture, ed. Kimberly Wallace- Sanders (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2002) 39.
See Robert Staples, Exploring Black Sexuality (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006) 111–12.
See Michael Eric Dyson, “When You Divide Body and Soul, Problems Multiply: The Black Church and Sex,” Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, ed. Rudolph P. and Beverly Guy-Sheftal Byrd (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001) 312.
Phillip Brian Harper, Are We Not Men?: Masculine Anxiety and the Problem of African-American Identity (New York: Oxford UP, 1996) 10.
John F. Harris, “God Gave Us ‘What We Deserve,’ Falwell Says,” The Washington Post September 14, 2001.
Phelps, Sr., Fred W., “WBC Will Picket__________, Ph.D. She’s a Multicultural, Diversity-Celebrating Blabbermoth,” November 13, 1996, Westboro Baptist Church, June 15, 2007, Available: http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/flier archive.html.
Colbert I. King, “Gays, God and Bishop Owens,” Op-Ed, Washington Post May 13, 2006.
Valerie G. Lowe makes this observation of black preachers who condemn homosexuality but do not provide a venue for people to struggle out of the homosexual lifestyle. See Valerie. G. Lowe, “Homosexuality and the Black Church: Let’s Stop Hiding from the Pain,” Charisma Magazine October 1998: 86.
Barbara L. Frankowski, “Sexual Orientation and Adolescents,” Pediatrics 113.6 (2004): 1828.
Ruth Hubbard, “The Search for Sexual Identity: False Genetic Markers,” New York Times August 2, 1993.
See Daryl Bem, “Is EBE Theory Supported by the Evidence? Is It Andorcentric? A Reply to Perplau Et Al.,” Psychological Review 105.2 (1998).
Donnie McClurkin, Eternal Victim/Eternal Victor (Lanham: Pneuma Life Publishing, Inc., 2001) 135.
T. D. Jakes, He-Motions: Even Strong Men Struggle (Grosset & Dunlap, 2004) 158–59.
James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, 1st ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953) 15–16.
E. Patrick Johnson, “Feeling the Spirit in the Dark: Expanding Notions of the Sacred in the African American Gay Community,” The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities, ed. Delroy Constantine-Simms, 1st ed. (Los Angeles: Alyson Books, 2001) 95.
Jeffrey Q. McCune, “Transformance: Reading the Gospel in Drag,” The Drag Queen Anthology: The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawlessly Customary World of Female Impersonators, eds. Steven P. Schacht and Lisa Underwood (Binghampton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2004) 160.
Rhonda Graham, “And the Choir Sings On,” The Wilmingston Delaware Sunday News Journal October 23, 1994.
Marlon T. Riggs, Black Is—Black Ain’t: A Personal Journey through Black Identity, DVD, California Newsreel, San Francisco, CA, 2004.
For more discussions of the DL, see Keith Boykin, Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies, and Denial in Black America (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005).
J. L. King and Courtney Carreras, Coming Up from the Down Low: the Journey to Acceptance, Healing, and Honest Love, 1st ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, 2005).
and J. L. King and Karen Hunter, On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of “Straight” Black Men Who Sleep with Men, 1st ed. (New York: Broadway Books, 2004).
Michael Foust, “Atlanta: Black Pastors Rally to Oppose Same-Sex ‘Marriage,’” March 26, 2004, Baptist Press, June 27, 2007, Available: http://www.baptist-press.com/bpnews.asp?ID=17941.
Molefi K. Asante, Afrocentricity, New rev. ed. (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1988) 57.
Stefanie Dunning, “Parallel Perversions: Interracial and Same Sexuality in James Baldwin’s Another Country,” MELUS 26.4 (2001): 98.
James Baldwin, “Freaks and the American Ideal of Manhood,” James Baldwin: Collected Essays, ed. Toni Morrison (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1998).
Rudolph P. Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, eds., Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001) 19.
Cornell West, “Black Sexuality: The Taboo Subject,” Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, eds. Rudolph P. Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001).
Victor Anderson, “Deadly Silence: Reflections on Homosexuality and Human Rights,” Sexual Orientation & Human Rights in American Religious Discourse, eds. Saul M. Olyan and Martha Craven Nussbaum (New York: Oxford UP, 1998) 189.
Cheryl Sanders, “The Role of Religion in Electoral Politics,” October 21, 2004, Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett, ed. Gilliss, Trent. American Public Media, October 27, 2006, Available: speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/otheramerica/essay-sanders.
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© 2011 Stacy C. Boyd
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Boyd, S.C. (2011). Donnie McClurkin and the Tensions of Black Christian Sexuality. In: Black Men Worshipping. Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230339415_4
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