Pastor Apologizes For Colleagues Sermon

Bishop Charles E. Blake, the Presiding Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, used his pul­pit on Sunday to pub­licly apol­o­gize for the actions of one of the speak­ers at COGIC’s 107^th Holy Convocation in St. Louis.

In a ser­mon that has gone viral, Superintendent Earl Carterpreached a mes­sage that that called gay men “sissies” and expressed that he hoped they would “bleed from their butts,” among oth­er shock­ing statements.

“I got some­thing for all these homo­sex­u­als just walk­ing around here with your pock­et­books, with your tight pants and your bowtie, and you’re walk­ing like a girl, you need deliv­er­ance,” Carter said in his ser­mon. “I’mma tell you why you need deliv­er­ance and I’mma tell you what’s wrong with you walk­ing ‘round here, look­ing like a sis­sy. If they don’t want nobody to say noth­ing about you, I’m gone say some­thing about you. You’re per­vert­ed and you’re lost!”Carter, who is Senior Pastor of Christ Ministries Church of God in Christ, Orlando, FL, went on blame fel­low pas­tors for allow­ing gay men to be active in their min­istries. “I blame some of these preach­ers. You got the sissies up here doing praise and wor­ship,” he sermonized.

Now Bishop Blake, who is Senior Pastor of West Angeles COGIC in Los Angeles, is con­demn­ing the actions of Rev. Carter.

“On Saturday evening, November the 8^th, one of our more than 15 speak­ers used terms and spoke in a way that was offen­sive and inap­pro­pri­ate. “Though he alone is respon­si­ble for the nature and tone of his remarks, it was on my watch that this took place. Even though I was not present at the ser­vice on that night, as Presiding Bishop, I apol­o­gize for what seemed to be a harsh, uncom­pas­sion­ate, dis­re­spect­ful spir­it on the part of that speak­er,” Bishop Blake pre­sent­ed, from a pre­pared statement.

The 74-year-old church leader went on to address Andrew Caldwell, the 21-year-old attendee whose dec­la­ra­tion of “I’m Not Gay No More” has become the lat­est viral craze and caused both the COGIC orga­ni­za­tion and Christianity as a whole to be pub­licly ridiculed and criticized.

“I also apol­o­gize to Andrew Caldwell, a young seek­er of The Lord who came forth and made state­ments on that night on his change of heart and his pur­pose. His tes­ti­mo­ny lit­er­al­ly went viral and has brought upon him crit­i­cism and sar­donicism. We extend our love, our prayers and our sup­port that young man as he seeks to know God and to serve God,” offered Bishop Blake.

In con­clu­sion, Bishop Blake expressed that the actions of one bad preach­er is not reflec­tive of entire COGIC denom­i­na­tion and of Christian believ­ers as a whole.

“We believe that we should reflect the love and com­pas­sion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in all that we do. And we do not in any way com­pro­mise our bib­li­cal posi­tion against same-sex unions are in favor of bib­li­cal teach­ings on mat­ters of sex­u­al con­duct, but at the same time we expect that our cler­gy and laity will be civ­il and con­sid­er­ate as they speak to men and women regard­ing issues relat­ed to our Christian faith. We love all peo­ple regard­less of their faith or their moral stan­dard. And when we fail to express our­selves with love and humil­i­ty we con­tra­dict the wit­ness we strive to have to the world. The Church of God in Christ whol­ly con­demns acts of vio­lence against and the sub­ju­ga­tion of any per­son to ver­bal and phys­i­cal harass­ment on the basis of their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion of sex­u­al stance,” he con­clud­ed. http://​alwaysal​ist​.com/​f​a​i​t​h​/​b​i​s​h​o​p​b​l​a​k​e​-​c​o​g​i​c​a​p​o​l​o​gy/

PUBLISHERS NOTE

When Christians are faced with tri­als and tribu­la­tions they must ask them­selves what would Jesus do. Jesus was not afraid to speak truth to pow­er while he was on Earth ‚> In fact there are ample doc­u­ment­ed instances where Jesus stood up to the estab­lished order and spoke clear­ly and unequiv­o­cal­ly about sin and what it takes to enter into his father’s Kingdom.

♦When he healed the woman who had a Spirit of Infirmity he was chas­tised by Church lead­ers because he healed the woman on the Sabbath day . Instead of rejoic­ing at the mirac­u­lous heal­ing of one of his con­gre­ga­tion, the ruler “answered with indig­na­tion” because an inter­pre­ta­tion of the law has been transgressed.

Jesus chid­ed them. Luke 13:10 – 17 :

¹⁵ The Lord answered him, “You hyp­ocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or don­key from the stall and lead it out to give it water? ¹⁶ Then should not this woman, a daugh­ter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eigh­teen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

¹⁷ When he said this, all his oppo­nents were humil­i­at­ed, but the peo­ple were delight­ed with all the won­der­ful things he was doing.

♦Matthew 21 vs 12 : 12And Jesus entered the tem­ple and drove out all those who were buy­ing and sell­ing in the tem­ple, and over­turned the tables of the mon­ey chang­ers and the seats of those who were sell­ing doves.13And He said to them, “It is writ­ten, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER’; but you are mak­ing it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”…

There is ample evi­dence of Jesus ris­ing up in Righteous indig­na­tion and assert­ing his Father’s words.

Too many in the Christian Church are afraid of speak­ing out on hot but­ton top­i­cal issues for fear they will be ostra­cized. Jesus Christ was ostra­cized. His dis­ci­ples were ostra­cized for fol­low­ing him and preach­ing the word. Some Pastors are afraid of offend­ing the queer com­mu­ni­ty, Some are afraid of los­ing the mon­ey com­ing in on Sunday morn­ings. Is that what Jesus told us to do? Did Jesus ask us to bow to sin and apol­o­gize for the truth?

Pastors if the World is hap­py with your ser­mons you are serv­ing the prince of the world.

As Christians we must be care­ful to show love as Jesus did and as he charges us to love. One thing we must nev­er con­fuse, is lov­ing the sin­ner and the sin. God loves the sin­ner but he hates sin. 

Some in the church has dis-empow­ered the church with false teach­ings which are not sup­port­ed by Biblical teachings. 

The world is watch­ing what we Christians do. They laugh at us because many of us are doing the same things we did before we claimed we got saved. They call us hyp­ocrites . It’s time for the church to come out from among them and be like a bea­con on a hill that can­not be hid. 

If that means being ostra­cized by the world then so be it.