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An Ox That Needs To Be Gored In The Black Community: Black Churches, Where Are You?

June 26, 2015 by  
Filed under Christian Talk, News, Opinion, Politics, Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Where are the Black Churches, and where are all of the millions of dollars in tithes they’re collecting every Sunday going? Black preachers do a great job of giving inspirational speeches, and telling us to “forgive, forget, and put all of the atrocities committed against us in God’s Hands,” but we’ve been doing that for over 400 years, and the same kind thing keeps happening over and over again. So it seems to me that, that constitutes a message from God – that he help those who help themselves. So while quivering voices and inspirational speeches may be soothing, they’re not improving our situation, and they’re not what we need at this point in our history. We need action.
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God did his part when he gave us common sense. Now it’s our job to use it, and recognize that the very same people who are victimizing us are the ones who taught us to moan, quiver, and shout, while they had us tied up next to the mules. That’s what kept us docile, and it’s still keeping us docile. Yet, if that’s what we’ve become accustomed to, there’s plenty of time for shouting and quivering oratory on Sunday. But reverend, the relevant question is, what are you doing OTHER than quivering and shouting to help the community Monday thru Saturday? I think that’s what the Lord would ask.
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The Black churches in every community should be forming consortiums, pooling the tithes they’re collecting every Sunday to purchase businesses to provide jobs for our young people that pay a living wage, and purchase property to provide affordable housing in the community. The churches should be open 7 days a week to provide affordable childcare for working mothers. Then they could also hire unemployed mothers to help in the daycare centers. They could utilize the retired professionals in their congregations to help mentor and instruct the people in the community.  And of course, there should be a citizens committee to oversee the operation of the various businesses, and it should require multiple signatures to withdraw any funds from the bank for any reason. And finally, to ensure that the funds are being used most efficiently, preachers should be placed on salaries instead of being allowed to get rich at the expense of the community. Jesus was not a wealthy man, so why should any preacher be?
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That would go a long way toward relieving the suffering in the Black community. But I’m sure that most preachers would be totally against such a plan (especially the salary part), and the rest of the plan would be much too much trouble, because it would require them to work more than one day a week.
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The Black community has spoiled its preachers. When the community needs something the preacher will tell them to take it to the Lord in prayer, but when the preacher needs something, he comes to us. So the community must start demanding more of these preachers. Just as it’s the preacher’s job to keep us on the path of righteousness, it’s our job to do the same with them.

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“IF YE WERE ABRAHAM’S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM”
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As I drive through the Black community and see the magnificent “houses of God” towering over the community in the midst of poverty, social need, and in some cases, squalor all around them, I can’t help but wonder how many of them are really doing God’s work.
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When I look at those resplendent edifices, it takes me back to a little storefront church on a 108th and Juniper in Watts, where my grandmother first sent me for religious instruction – she was ill atmegachurch-2015 the time, so she couldn’t take me to “the big church” in which she was a member.
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I’ll never forget that little storefront church. It stood down the street and in the shadow of a huge and elaborately appointed Catholic church, seemingly, almost as an afterthought. It was so small and had so few members that the thought of attracting a true “ordained man of God” was out of the question, so we had to settle for a little, unassuming man that we used to refer to as Elder Hampton. That little church was the closest thing to worshiping in someone’s living room as you could get, but to this day, whenever I begin to lose faith in the basic goodness of my fellow man, or even remotely begin to contemplate God, I think of that little storefront church.
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If I’d remained at that church, I don’t know what I would have been doing today. My young instincts led me to become so close to Elder Hampton that I might have even become a preacher. He used to take me with him to visit the old, the poor, and the sickly in the neighbor. Black, Mexican, young, old, Baptist or Catholic, he didn’t care what a person was – if they were sick or in need, they were all a part of his flock.
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Looking back on it, I don’t know where he found the resources. He certainly didn’t get it from our little collection plate – we were so poor and so few in number he couldn’t have gotten more than ten dollars a Sunday out of us, max. But in spite of that, he was no Sunday preacher. He was a full-time man of God – if you were sick or in need, you could count on him seven days a week. But after my grandmother had an operation and finally got over her illness, they took me to the “big church,” and I never saw Elder Hampton again, but his influence has remained constant in my life to this day – in fact, though I must admit that I’m rarely found in church these days, it is his lingering influence that’s led me to write this article, and everything else that I write.
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The first time I went to the big church I was completely overwhelmed with the opulence of it all. Shortly before I arrived, the church had just imported in a new fireball of an ordained minister, direct from Dallas, Texas. He was nothing like the quiet and humble Elder Hampton. He had a big booming voice, wore shinny Florsheim’s, expensive suits, and a sense of importance just oozed from every pore of his body. When this man walked into a room it sucked all the oxygen out of the place – you just knew you were in the presence of someone significant.

 
 

And God must have loved this magnificent church the minister headed – the choir alone in this ornate house of God was larger by a factor of three than the entire membership of the little church I’d grown accustomed to, and the choir pit was twice as large as the room where we held Sunday school. The parking lot of the church was filled with big, expensive cars, and a limousine was often parked next to the front entrance. In addition, City Councilmen and other politicians were counted among its membership, and a well known entertainer (Billy Preston) was the church organist. In a church like this you didn’t have to wait to get to Heaven – every Sunday you were right there. The only problem was, after services you had to return to reality, which was more often than not, a life of pure hell.
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I’ve often wondered what Elder Hampton would have done with all of those resources. But I couldn’t imagine Elder Hampton heading a magnificent place like this. Since he wasn’t ordained, he never would have even been considered to head a place like this in the first place. I don’t care how Godly you were, stature took precedence there – if Moses wanted to head the church, they’d want to inspect his credentials. But even if Elder Hampton would have been ordained, he was much too humble a man to be embraced by the high-powered people in this membership. With his quiet, unassuming demeanor, even as a member, he would have been a back-bencher  – politely tolerated, but scarcely noticed.
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And further, Elder Hampton wouldn’t begin to know how to manage the resources of a huge church like that. While he was definitely a man of God, he wasn’t a practical man. He probably would have squander all the church’s resources on the no-account sinners in the surrounding community.
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He was just too impractical. He probably would have setup a soup kitchen and built a dormitory to house the homeless at night, and hired unemployed mothers to start a low-cost daycare center on the church grounds during the day. Then it wouldn’t be no time at all before he’d dig up the church’s beautiful grounds, trying to put up basketball courts and a recreation building to draw young people off the streets after school. And of course, between the kids during the day, the teenagers in the early evening, and the homeless at night, it would cost the church a fortune just to keep up the grounds and repair damages to the building.
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Much of the congregation would have been in an uproar over the chaos he’d create. And it would go far beyond simply chaos. He would have long since lost most of the influential politicians. Every Sunday he’d be hounding them at church, and calling them at home during the week, trying to get them to create Empowerment Zones, and Special Need Zones to establish low-cost loans to help the surrounding neighbors to purchase and fix-up the houses they were living in. It’s no wonder he’d drive the politicians out of the church. How could he expect these busy men and women to worship God in peace with him buzzing around like a gadfly trying to get them to help the poor?
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No, Elder Hampton’s heart was in the right place, but he’d have been much too impractical to run a big church like that. He was a God loving man, but he lacked common sense. He actually thought that when God said Love thy neighbor, he meant it. What a fool.
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Yeah, Elder Hampton would have definitely been a back-bencher at that church. He would have been the fool sitting way in the back – with Jesus.
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“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . .”
Elder Hampton, God knew of the good works that you did in secret . . . And unbeknownst to you, he sent a child to record them.
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Dedicated To Elder Hampton, A Man Of God.
 
Staff Writer; Eric L. Wattree
 
More thought provoking articles feel free to visit; The Wattree Chronicle.

Comments

5 Responses to “An Ox That Needs To Be Gored In The Black Community: Black Churches, Where Are You?”
  1. Black Churches
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    Reality – Check,

    I completely agree. Black people need to wake up. We have to realize that we can’t buy our way into Heaven by making some preacher rich. Slave owners taught us that nonsense while they had us tied up next to the mules. It made us more docile and easily manipulated, and that’s just the way many Black preachers are using it against us today.
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    These church members aren’t worshiping God; they’re worshiping the preacher. Clear evidence of that is instead of insisting on doing using tithes, they’re making the preacher rich. all preachers should be on a salary that’s commensurate with the average income of their congregation. If we did that, we’d get some of the pimps out of the profession.
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    “IF YE WERE ABRAHAM’S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM”
    John 8:39
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    “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues [churches] and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . .”
    Matthew 6:1-34
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    In other words, those people who like to sit up in church shouting “praise the Lord” are hypocrites. God judges you by what you DO not what you say, and these churches aren’t doing a thing to help the Black community.

  2. reality_check says:

    I’m so glad someone wrote this as I have said for a few years now: The Black church is the BIGGEST thing holding black people back today.

    The black church has become completely feckless and is a shadow of its pre-civil rights era days. If black churches actually used its collective energies and influence to actually HELP black people, we would be in such a better place today as a people.

    Can you imagine what we can do with all that “tithe” money the churches collect on a weekly basis? Imagine the possibilities.

    But, alas, the same mental illness that plagues black society also plagues black churches (i.e., self hate, distrust, greed, etc.).

    I have been done with the black church for a couple years now and do not plan on returning any time soon. Black folk will do good to heal ourselves from this institution. we need it yesterday!

  3. So, Marque Anthony,

    We have no more evidence that the Bible is “The Word Of God” than if it were a comic book. You can only now God’s will by what he’s done, and he made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think, not to follow a user’s guide. I mean, talkin’ snakes!!!? Come on, man! Use your brain, because that’s the only thing you know for SURE God gave you. By following the Bible, you’re not having faith in God; your faith is in man, and what he’s TELLING you about God.
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    Email me, and I’ll educate you further on the matter.

  4. Marque Anthony,

    All of that is besides the point and it’s a deviation from the point I’m trying to make. As a writer you should know that the point of writing is to communicate, so I’m using the word “tithe” as it is currently understood. And besides that, we have no evidence that God ever said anything. It’s all hearsay, and we’re just taking man’s word for it. What we call the Holy Bible wasn’t even compiled by the Catholic church until almost 400 years after the death of Jesus – and even then, they only allowed books that they agreed with to become a part of it. Thus, the Bible is not the word of God, it’s the word of Pope St. Damasus I.
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    For the first 300 years of Christianity, there was no Bible as we know it today. Christians had the Old Testament Septuagint, and literally hundreds of other books from which to choose. The Catholic Church realized early on that it had to decide which of these books were inspired and which ones weren’t. The debates raged between theologians, Bishops, and Church Fathers for several centuries as to which books were inspired and which ones weren’t. In the meantime, several Church Councils or Synods, were convened to deal with the matter, notably, Rome in 382, Hippo in 393, and CarthageThe Bible that Christians Worship today was compiled and “bless” by the Catholic Church, not God. Any book that disagreed with the Catholic Church was banned. What Christians call “The Holy Bible,” and what these preachers run around thumpin’, wasn’t even put together until almost 400 years after the death of Christ. So everything in it is hearsay. In terms of years, they were as far away from the life and times of Jesus Christ as we are away from George Washington. So in reality, they didn’t know fact from fiction, any more than we know whether or not George Washington really chopped down a cherry tree:
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    in 397 and 419. The debates sometimes became bitter on both sides. One of the most famous was between St. Jerome, who felt the seven books were not canonical, and St. Augustine who said they were. Protestants who write about this will invariably mention St. Jerome and his opposition, and conveniently omit the support of St. Augustine. I must point out here that Church Father’s writings are not infallible statements, and their arguments are merely reflections of their own private opinions. When some say St. Jerome was against the inclusion of the seven books, they are merely showing his personal opinion of them. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. However, A PERSONS PRIVATE OPINION DOES NOT CHANGE THE TRUTH AT ALL. There are always three sides to every story, this side, that side, and the side of truth. Whether Jerome’s position, or Augustine’s position was the correct position, had to be settled by a third party, and that third party was the Catholic Church.
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    Now the story had a dramatic change, as the Pope stepped in to settle the matter. In concurrence with the opinion of St. Augustine, and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, Pope St. Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382, issued a decree appropriately called, “The Decree of Damasus”, in which he listed the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. He then asked St. Jerome to use this canon and to write a new Bible translation which included an Old Testament of 46 books, which were all in the Septuagint, and a New Testament of 27 books.
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    ROME HAD SPOKEN – FOR GOD – AND THE ISSUE WAS SETTLED

  5. Marque Anthony says:

    Churches are not collecting tithes because God never said the tithe was money. I am a writer ion this site and you should email me at brainstormonline@yahoo.com to learn the whole truth about the tithe. Jesus never paid tithes, nor did any apostle. Nor did they collect tithes from anyone. In Leviticus 27 God says what the tithe is and it was never money

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