I have a
relative who is very religious and each time that I speak to her, she uses our
time together to proselytize and preach the Gospel. She is always inviting me to her church and I
usually come up with an excuse for why I can’t go. I’ve even told her flat out of the many
reasons that I don’t attend church services.
She remains persistent in her quest to recruit new members.
It’s not that
there is anything wrong with someone being deeply passionate about Christ or
their religion. Everyone is free to
worship, believe or not believe in whatever they choose to. I was actually raised up in the Christian
faith and respect people’s right to worship.
At the same, I don’t see myself as very religious and I rarely go to
religious services, and am rather reluctant to call myself a Christian. I am not against the idea of settling into a
church home and attending regular services.
However, at the present time I choose to read my Bible and pray in
private, rather than having fellowship with other so-called Christians.
There are a
few main reasons why I have chosen this path.
The first being that most churches that I have visited seem to have the
greater agenda of raising money over saving souls and spreading the Gospel. The other major reason is that there is so
much hypocrisy and foolishness within the Christian church, that it makes
fellowship nearly unbearable. The last
reason has more to do with the actual conflicts and things that don’t make
sense in the written text of the Holy Bible.
Now, let me
get into a little detail on my thoughts about the money aspect of the church,
more specifically the Black church in America.
Most Black churches in America seem to have a common thread, which is
the commercialization of Christianity.
Now, I am certain that there are White run churches that engage in the
same activities (just watch some of the programming on TBN) but I can only
speak more to what goes on in some Black churches. By the way, I am NOT saying that all churches
or Black churches are like this- just some of the ones that I’ve encountered.
It is a
widespread and common tactic for many pastors of Black run churches to
implement the “Prosperity Gospel” for their own financial gain. What they do is interpret the words of the
Bible in such a way to manipulate the feeble and vulnerable minds of people who
can‘t use their brains in a logical manner.
These types of preachers/ false prophets appeal to people’s emotions
when they are up there in the pulpit shouting the words from the scripture and
do it in a very theatrical manner.
Many people
catch the Holy Ghost, start falling out, dancing, doing cartwheels and running
all over the church like they’ve lost their cotton-picking minds. The music, the setting, the hand clapping
(mostly in those “charismatic” and “evangelical” churches) have the effect of
putting the congregation into a hypnotic state.
Some of the stuff is real. And
there are documented cases of people getting healed in church. But, sometimes it is a big farce.
Before you
know it, you’re all teary-eyed, feeling like the Holy Ghost is in the house and
you’re reaching for your wallet or check book.
Hey, if you fell for those deceptions, don’t be down on yourself. It has happened to the best of us.
I can recount
many occasions where I have gone to different churches and the pastor of the
church solicited money several times during the course one service. I have been to quite a number of revivals
where the pastor stated that God told him or her (liar!) that there were a
certain number of people who could sow a faith seed of specific amounts of
money. Now, they have things planned
down to an art where they actually have envelopes pre-made up with the dollar
amounts written on them (for example, $50, $100, $1000, $5,000 denominations). Many of these churches have their systems
setup to where they not only accept cash and checks but also debit and credit
cards. I find this particularly
disturbing because it encourages people to go into debt in order to support the
church and receive “their blessing“.
Before I get
too far ahead of myself, let me make something very clear: There is absolutely nothing wrong with a
church collecting donations in order to maintain the church and pay its administrative
expenses. Some people disagree but
depending on how the money is allocated, I don’t see anything wrong with parishioners
paying tithes, either. I don’t pay
tithes to a church, since I am not a regular member of a church. If people feel that paying tithes is
biblically correct, then that is their business.
There is
nothing wrong with a pastor and church employees taking a modest salary for
their work. If they are devoting their
entire lives to spreading the Gospel and don’t have a job, then they need a way
to support their families. I definitely don’t see anything wrong with the
pastor of a church being wealthy, provided that his wealth came from business
outside of the church itself.
There
is something very wrong with a church accepting money from the public without
making a full accounting of what the funds are being used for. There is definitely something remiss about
funds being used for unnecessary, lofty building renovations and pomp, while
there are people in the local community whom are suffering both spiritually and
economically. It is very sick and
twisted for a Christian to even want to exploit and take from someone who needs it the
most, only for their own financial gain.
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