Religion, God and Whitney Houston

We here at Rhetoric Race and Religion collected articles and posted videos that examined Whitney Houston through the lens of religion. Here are those stories again. Enjoy

Whitney’s “home going” and the spiritual divide

Media coverage of singer Whitney Houston’s funeral evoked a disappointment I often feel as a black woman in America. It reminded me that many elements of black culture are still viewed as exotic and, in some cases, disdained as such.

Houston’s funeral, but for being broadcast live and attended by celebrities, seemed unremarkable in the context of other black, Baptist memorials I have witnessed. There was rousing gospel; truth-telling; passion; equal doses of laughing and crying, clapping and shouting; references to Jesus; moving sermons; a few long-winded eulogizers; some preening preachers on “thrones” in the pulpit; a sense of sorrow, but a greater sense of joy–celebration of life and of a soul “going home” and being released from earthly sorrows. This is not to say that all African Americans grieve the same way or grieve in a Baptist Christian way, but for most black viewers Houston’s service was not completely alien.
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I’m Every Woman: Whitney Houston, the Voice of the Post–Civil Rights Era
by Daphne A. Brooks
The Nation

She wasn’t Etta or Aretha, and she certainly wasn’t Diana (an artist from whom she vociferously distanced herself and who was, herself, at the Grammys, conspicuously grief-free when her time at the podium rolled around). She lacked the dangerous energy of Tina’s high-octane routines and the erotic funk of Chaka at the peak of the Soul Train era. But in many ways she was the sum of all of those artists combined, rearranged and reimagined for the Reagan-Bush ’80s. In those early, candy-colored “How Will I Know” years, riding the edge of her teens with sparkly bows and mile-high crimp locks, she channeled Etta’s youthful chutzpah, yoked it with the Queen of Soul’s vocal confidence and power and Tina’s discipline and gently folded in a bit of Khan’s sensuality so as to create a pop heroine the world had never before seen or heard at that point in time—a black female Top 40–meets-MTV protagonist whose sound welcomed us to a bright new crossover world of what might be, where Huxtable brownstones and an emerging black middle class made cultural integration seemingly more palpable and more palatable to the masses for a brief moment in time.
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Apples and The Girl From East Orange: How Bites From the Forbidden Fruit Led to the Demise of Whitney Houston

by Gee Joyner
Rhetoric Race and Religion Contributor
Now that the spectacle of another iconic American celebrity death and funeral has dissipated (only minutely I may add), I think it is high time that the social commentators and those who keenly critique the nuances of popular culture and the inhabitants thereof compositionally delve into the death of Ms. Whitney Elizabeth Houston.

Though I was reluctant to compose a text addressing her untimely death, or timely if you considered the way she abused her body and mind with illicit drugs, I figured I would give it a try seeming that the conversations I have heard and the Facebook posts in which I have seen, and responded to, are inundated with a pain of sorts and an admiration for the career of the Pop/R&B;/Gospel nightingale yet no one seems to be openly addressing the impetus for this ‘untimely’ death.
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Houston funeral brings world inside black church
by Stephen Prothero
CNN

Whitney Houston gave a lot of gifts to the world. She gave us the best rendition ever of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” She gave us “I Will Always Love You.”

But Saturday at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, where as a girl she sang in the choir, she gave us a church service — a chance for people of all races to see what church looks like inside the community that gave Houston (and us) her voice.

“There are more stars here than the Grammys,” said Houston’s music director, Rickey Minor, and the service did feature pop star Stevie Wonder and music mogul Clive Davis, among others. But so much of popular music started in the black church, and today the black church talked back.
n other words, this was an unapologetically Christian service, replete with references to salvation and “amazing grace,” where even the pop stars were transformed into gospel singers. People crossed themselves. They raised their hands to heaven. And the congregation kept shouting back: “Yes!” and “That’s it!” and “Praise the Lord!”

Tyler Perry testified that “Whitney Houston loved the Lord.” Cece Winans sang “Jesus Loves Me.” And when R. Kelly sang “I Look to You,” he wasn’t just accompanied by the choir behind him but by a chorus of “amens” from the congregation.
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With Whitney Houston’s death, burial, Gen Xers confront mortality
By Sophia A. Nelson
Grio

Some have been critical and cruel toward Whitney in this past week, for some of the mistakes she made in her brief life. Some have said that she should not have been honored with flags flying at half mast in her home state of New Jersey, or that she did not deserve having her funeral played live throughout the world. I respectfully disagree. Whitney Elizabeth Houston mattered to tens of millions of people worldwide. She helped them along their journey with her songs.
To those of us in Gen X, she was a game changer on so many levels. She was our black butterfly, our pop music queen, our diva, and she did what few singers ever have: her music crossed over — across race, culture, gender and religious barriers with the soulful, stirring sounds of her voice.
Sitting with some girlfriends (my age) Friday night talking over drinks, we all lamented that many of our beloved icons from our youth had passed away in recent years. Michael Jackson, Luther Vandross, Teena Marie, Phyllis Hyman, Heavy D, Soul Train founder Don Cornelius and now sweet, pretty Whitney. It wasn’t that we loved the others any less, but somehow Whitney’s loss hit us all so much deeper. She was our girl, she was one of us, as she struggled through life at times as we all do, but she kept getting back in the arena. Most importantly, she gave us the gift of her music, in her lyrics, in her movies; she touched us where we all live. And as Bishop Jakes said, where we live is “love”. Love always prevails.
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Tyler Perry’s Words of Comfort

Kevin Coster’s Words of Comfort

Marvin Winans

‘ Eulogy