Black Churches Reject MLK Message

This One Just Ticked Me Off

Hey folks,

Happy Monday morning. I'll be honest with you. I saw this CNN piece about 1 pm on Sunday. I have been thinking about it ever since. This one just plain ticked me off. This is not all that factual, and the hypocrisy of the whole message that CNN is attempting to portray here is blinding to the cause.

Get this, from CNN - Modern black church shuns King's message

(CNN) -- In a stinging passage from a "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. condemned white churches for rejecting his pleas for support.

"In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies," King wrote from jail during the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, demonstrations.

The contemporary white church has largely accepted King as a religious hero. Yet some observers say there is one religious community that continues to shun King -- the black church.

That is true, but not the way this article portrays.

Forty years after his death, King remains a prophet without honor in the institution that nurtured him, black preachers and scholars say. King's "prophetic" model of ministry -- one that confronted political and economic institutions of power -- has been sidelined by the prosperity gospel.

Prosperity ministers preach that God rewards the faithful with wealth and spiritual power. Prosperity pastors such as Bishop T.D. Jakes have become the most popular preachers in the black church. They've also become brands. They've built megachurches and business empires with the prosperity message.

This is Partially true. However, they have built these churches using the Word of God, that talks about when you are faithful to God, he will be faithful to you. Not just in riches but in all things. It was NEVER a blessing to be poor.

Black prophetic pastors rarely fill the pews like other pastors, though, because their message is so inflammatory, says Henry Wheeler, a church historian.Prophetic pastors like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, often enrage people because they proclaim God's judgment on nations, he says.

Pastor Manning, Pastor Wright,the Rev.s Sharpton and Jackson do not have as big a following because the are teaching HATE! Because they are teaching separatism. Because there is no real teaching of the Word of God, about love, forgiveness, and TRUE Unity. They would be out of business if that actually were to happen. People are starting to realize the intent of their message.

"It's dangerous to be prophetic," said Wheeler, who is also president of the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.

"I don't know many prophetic preachers who are driving big cars and living very comfortably. You don't generally build huge churches by making folks uncomfortable on Sunday morning," he said.

This is COMPLETELY Bogus. Pastor Wright just bought a million dollar home in a predominantly White suburban gated community. How much money does Manning have? What about Jackson and Sharpton? Are they driving junkers, and eating tuna sandwiches?

The prosperity gospel started as a fringe doctrine in the black church. It was pioneered by "Rev. Ike," a prosperity televangelist with a pompadour who boasted during his heyday in the 1970s that "my garages runneth over."

Jonathan Walton, author of "Watch This! Televangelism and African American Religious Culture," says that although people may have chuckled at Ike's flamboyance, his theology exerts more influence in the modern black church than King's.

"King got the glory and the history books, but ... [Ike has] got the numbers," said Walton, who is also an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of California, Riverside.

Black prosperity preachers say their message is not based on greed, though, but self-help.

Exactly. They are not teaching you, do nothing and be blessed. Although some would like to portray it like that. They are teaching YOU have to do for YOU then God can help you. They are NOT saying just sit on your couch, collect money from the Government because the evil rich White man has kept you down. Which is probably why some hate this message.

Bishop Paul Morton, senior pastor of Greater St. Stephens Full Gospel Church in New Orleans, Louisiana, says that teaching black people better money management is the "next dimension" of King's ministry.

"The Bible said that the poor we will always have with us," he said. "It's up to us to bring ourselves out of the curse of poverty."

AMEN!

Morton was the only black prosperity preacher contacted who agreed to talk about King's ministry. Many of the black church's most popular prosperity preachers -- the Rev. Creflo Dollar of Atlanta, Georgia; the Rev. Fred Price of Los Angeles, California; and Bishop Keith Butler of Detroit, Michigan -- all declined.

Because this piece does nothing but attempt to prop up these Hate preachers.

Jakes, the most popular prosperity preacher (he made the cover of Time magazine in 2001), declined to talk as well. He did, however, address his views on social justice in August on "Religion & Ethics," a PBS news program.

"I'm not against marching," Jakes said. "But in the '60s, the challenge of the black church was to march. And there are times now perhaps that we may need to march. But there's more facing us than social justice. There's personal responsibility, motivating and equipping people to live the best lives that they can."

AMEN Again. Self responciblity. When did that become wrong?

The debate between self-help and political activism is nothing new in the black community. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois clashed over the issue at the beginning of the 20th century. Most black prophetic teachers teach self-help along with activism.

Alone with hate, and separatism.

King was caught in the middle of this debate early in his ministry.

King became prominent after leading the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, but he was already gaining a name for himself in the National Baptist Convention, the largest black church organization in the nation.

We do not have a reason to protest buses anymore. We do not have true equality in this country now because there are still some on BOTH sides teaching that we CAN NOT achieve it. Instead of teaching that we can't achieve it, why not teach MLK's MESSAGE.

King wanted to use the convention as an institutional base for the movement. But his tactics -- civil disobedience, publicly confronting segregationists -- were repudiated by convention leaders and the Rev. J.H. Jackson, the convention president, says Wheeler, the church historian.

"He thought that if blacks were good citizens, worked hard and did what was expected, our rights will come; we would prove out merit," Wheeler said.

Still applies, in a matter of speaking. Just cut out all the separatism rhetoric and start treating each other as equals. Do away with all the things that show bias toward ANY races, and start treating all equally. Best for the job, gets the job. Highest scores on the test, get in the schools. Good people treated as such, racists and bad people shunned, no matter WHAT color they are.

In 1961, King tried to orchestrate the election of a leader to replace Jackson. He and a group of black ministers attempted to vote Jackson out of office at the convention's annual meeting. It was a disaster.

According to Taylor Branch's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years," ministers exchanged blows. One lost three teeth. Another was killed when his skull was fractured. Riot police were called out to separate the warring pastors.

Jackson kicked King out of the convention and held onto power. The pastors who aligned themselves with King formed their own group, the Progressive National Baptist Convention. The schism remains today.

Wheeler says the black church's rejection of King wasn't confined to its leadership. Most people in the pews didn't want to get involved. The movement was driven primarily by younger people.

Fear was the primary reason, he says.

Still is. And the teaching of fear is still the tool some Black Leaders use to keep their paycheck in check.

"We forget that people were getting killed, churches being burned," he said. "It was the common understanding that things were not going to change, that people were getting killed for nothing."

But it did change. Changed A LOT. As much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with Hillary Clinton. Yup. I said it. But she is right. This year we have the very first Woman and Black man running for President that actually have a shot at winning. But you know what folks, for these and some in the Black Community, every time we have Blacks achieve, they are labeled as sell outs or Uncle Toms. It's not good enough for some of them. They seek dominance over anyone NOT Black. Get the point?

A new generation of prophetic ministers in the black church is now trying to do what King once attempted: gain a voice in the establishment.

They are doing it the wrong way. THAT is the problem.

Four years ago, a group of them formed the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. Proctor was a scholar and college president who was active in the civil rights movement. The annual conference attempts to preserve the prophetic voice of black churches by bringing like-minded pastors together for support and advice.

A few prophetic pastors have even talked about taking another approach to raising their profile in the black church: television, says Lawrence Mamiya, a professor of religion at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

"Some of them have talked about the need to get on television and try to counter the televangelists, but I don't know of any social justice preacher who has a broad television audience," he said.

Depends on their REAL Message. Calling it "prophetic" doesn't mean it's righteous or even right. Preaching HATE and separatism is NEVER right.

At least one young prophetic minister has found a prominent place in the public eye.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King preached, says that prosperity preaching is not just a distortion of Jesus' message but a betrayal of the black church's heritage. The black church was formed by slaves who saw Jesus' message as a tool for social justice.

"The prophetic voice of the black church is the very reason for its being," Warnock said. "The only reason that there's such a thing as the black church is because of the question of freedom, justice and equal access."

WHICH YOU NOW HAVE! Maybe it's time that you moved into 2008, and started actually teaching Jesus's message of love, acceptance and unity. What do you think?

Walton, the University of California scholar, says contemporary black churchgoers have now embraced another mission: equal access to wealth. "It's the theological doctrine of American culture," he said.

Continuous teaching of the White man being evil, the Black man cannot achieve. It's hopeless, ETC, is the doctrine of Hate and separatism.

King's voice may ring out in the history books, but it no longer rings out in the black pews. Walton says the battle between the prophetic and prosperity ministers in the black church is over for now.

The Rev. Ikes have won.

"Many Americans give lip service to entering the social justice arena and speaking out against the economic and politically powerful," Walton said, "but very few of us are willing to pay the price."

"We like to identify with Dr. King in theory, though we emulate Rev. Ike in practice."

Time is past. Not to mention people like Manning and Wright wouldn't know what King's message is if he were still alive to day telling them directly to their face.
Peter

Sources:
CNN - Modern black church shuns King's message