Black Pastors Selling Their Congregants…

(#1 in a series.)

I take the lib­er­ty to write on issues I deem top­i­cal at any giv­en time, issues which in my hum­ble opin­ion affect peo­ple’s lives on a dai­ly basis.
I do so with the sole inten­tion of effect­ing change and if at all pos­si­ble mak­ing this world a bet­ter place.
Having had the audac­i­ty of tak­ing it upon myself to have an opin­ion on issues of the day has def­i­nite­ly had its highs and lows.
Nevertheless, like ham­mer­ing away at sold rock each blow brings the per­son wield­ing the ham­mer one step clos­er to his desired goal.
I write because I see direc­tions those in pow­er take and I know they will only lead to fail­ure and destruc­tion, gen­er­al­ly at the tremen­dous loss of blood and treasure.

Someone asked me some time ago why I write?
I told him why as I stat­ed above, yet I felt the ques­tion was curi­ous, does one ask a Rapper why he raps, an actor why he acts, a singer why he sings?
One does not have to be a great rap­per, actor, singer, or painter to pur­sue his cho­sen pas­sion. Does one have to give an account­ing why he choos­es writ­ing as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion vehi­cle over say dance-hall reggae?
Writing is no dif­fer­ent. Many Artistes nev­er lived to see the acclaim their work gar­nered and that’s okay, as long as some­one’s life is enhanced by that work.

On the instances in which I dare to offer an opin­ion on issues whether its reli­gion, race, pol­i­tics or the rule of law or what­ev­er, I find that read­ers are the least inter­est­ed in the issue of religion.
Yet despite this, the issue of reli­gion touch­es our lives in ways we some­times do not con­sid­er, and have larg­er and far­ther reach­ing con­se­quences on our lives than any oth­er subject.
For exam­ple, Donald Trump’s recent deci­sion to uni­lat­er­al­ly declare Jerusalem the cap­i­tal of the Israeli state to sat­is­fy cer­tain local pres­sures and to appease Benjamin Netanyahu will have far-reach­ing con­se­quences, not just for the peo­ple liv­ing in that region but col­lat­er­al­ly for the entire world.
Yet there is pre­cious lit­tle if any dia­logue on this far-reach­ing and con­se­quen­tial deci­sion which Presidents of both polit­i­cal par­ties have avoid­ed step­ping into.

BIBLICAL PROPHECY SEEM TO BE COMING TO PASS EVEN AS WE MISS EVENTS WHICH BEAR OUT THOSE PROPHECIES

One does not have to be a Bible-thump­ing ide­o­logue to agree that much of what is writ­ten in the Scriptures seem to be hap­pen­ing in front of our eyes today. The Apostle Paul speak­ing to the Thessalonians (2) Thessalonians 2:1 – 3 Now, brethren, con­cern­ing the com­ing of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gath­er­ing togeth­er to Him, we ask you, ² not to be soon shak­en in mind or trou­bled, either by spir­it or by word or by let­ter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ^[a] had come. ³ Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin^[b] is revealed, the son of perdition.

Recent events have cer­tain­ly seemed to be plac­ing the Christian Church in dis­re­pute. Here in the United States, many are look­ing at the Evangelical move­ment with increased sus­pi­cion and trepidation.
How they ask, can a move­ment which pur­ports to rep­re­sent the divine God be a move­ment which dis­crim­i­nates against oth­ers on the basis of race, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, reli­gious beliefs etc?
They argue cor­rect­ly, that Jesus taught the con­cept of lov­ing all peo­ple even when we dis­agree with them. In fact James 4:12 teach­es There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?
Joel 3:12 Let the nations be aroused And come up to the val­ley of Jehoshaphat, For there I will sit to judge All the sur­round­ing nations.

According to the (Pewresearch​.org), Perhaps the most strik­ing trend in American reli­gion in recent years has been the grow­ing per­cent­age of adults who do not iden­ti­fy with a reli­gious group. And the vast major­i­ty of these reli­gious “nones” (78%) say they were raised as a mem­ber of a par­tic­u­lar reli­gion before shed­ding their reli­gious iden­ti­ty in adulthood.
Several of the respon­dents in the Pew research poll think reli­gion is too much like a busi­ness and oth­ers men­tion cler­gy sex­u­al abuse scan­dals as rea­sons for their stance.
This is not unique to the United States, not only are Christians among young peo­ple not adher­ing to the faiths of their fathers, reli­gious per­se­cu­tion forms a size­able part of the rea­son peo­ple are shun­ning the faith.
According to the (guardian​.com) The per­se­cu­tion of Christians is at a lev­el we’ve not seen for many, many years and the main impact is the migra­tion of Christian peo­ple. There are huge swaths of the world which are now expe­ri­enc­ing a very sharp decline in the num­ber of Christians.”
Forced falling away is falling away nonethe­less, or is it?

Perhaps most con­se­quen­tial to the con­ver­sa­tion is the fact that these are young peo­ple who were raised as mem­bers of dif­fer­ent reli­gious faiths, not just Christianity are now turn­ing their backs on the faiths they pre­vi­ous­ly held.
Is this the falling away of which the Bible speaks, are we there yet?
Like every­one else Christians are enti­tled to their polit­i­cal beliefs, church­es of var­i­ous faiths are ripe and pli­ant insti­tu­tions to be manip­u­lat­ed for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es, evan­gel­i­cal con­gre­ga­tions are no exceptions.
Let us be rea­son­able it takes some degree of faith to believe whole­heart­ed­ly in some­one you have nev­er seen and a thing you can­not prove.
sway­ing con­gre­ga­tions, how­ev­er, depends on whether you are able to con­vince the Pastors of those con­gre­ga­tions about the valid­i­ty of your cause, or make some offer which makes it worth­while for him.

The tragedy inher­ent in those deals is that there is pre­cious lit­tle in it for the con­gre­gants. The Pastors gen­er­al­ly do well when­ev­er they attach them­selves to cam­paigns even if mon­ey nev­er changes hands.
The press and expo­sure they receive ele­vate them with­in their com­mu­ni­ties and that gen­er­al­ly trans­lates into more mon­ey for them usu­al­ly as they become more sought after to speak to dif­fer­ent congregations.
It’s a kind of I wash your back you wash mine which has pre­cious lit­tle to do with the inter­est of their con­gre­ga­tions much less the fur­ther­ance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Sadly for many, they are manip­u­lat­ed on the basis of race, come Sunday morn­ing the church­es across America are some of the most seg­re­gat­ed places where peo­ple gather.
How could peo­ple who claim to wor­ship the same God be unwill­ing to coex­ist as broth­ers and sis­ters, chil­dren of that same God you ask?
Despite this major dis­crep­an­cy, some church lead­ers are will­ing to sell their flock for a mere pho­to-op, despite know­ing that the cause to which they are sell­ing them is anti­thet­i­cal to their very existence.

This Article is one in a series of sev­er­al which will be writ­ten on this subject.
Read like and share.…