In Answer to the Question: Where in This "Hell" is the Black Church?

Caveat:  This is a broadly-stroked, big picture snippet.  If this doesn't apply to you or your congregation, there's no need to raise your hackles.

One of my Facebook friends, a respected journalist, asked this question in a recent article.   This is my off-the-cuff, knee-jerk response.  If only I had time to craft an in-depth answer, but this will have to do for now.

The "Black" Church is no longer church.  "Church," being a family of God, are people who go about the business of God and His Kingdom.   However, rather than focus on King Building, the BC exalts their pastors, their musicians.   And more offensive, is rather than teach the BC better, pastors and musicians allow this.   Jesus moved around with his disciples but He didn't have body guards and armor bearers.   There were no reserved pews or reserved parking spaces.  And musicians need to remember that the chief minister of music was kicked out of heaven in the first place.  They need to remain ever diligent about their commitment to building God's Kingdom rather than building up themselves.

And the people who are the BC themselves have image problems.   They do not value themselves as children of God, so they spend more than they should on their outward appearance and temporary fixes like clothes and hair and nails and cars they claim God blessed them with (until they cannot pay the note), trying to either impress others, or make themselves appear to be superior or more affluent than others, or both.

Decades ago the people of the BC lived lives of commitment and sacrifice.  That is why our situations are different today – because of their commitment and sacrifices.   We have squandered their sacrifices by not committing ourselves to higher education, community service, teaching our children, helping each other, and being aware of how we take care of our homes and environment -- and even our bodies, among other things.   See Grieving for the Lost.  

We are members of the church of right now, the church of excuses, the church of the easy way, not The Way, The Truth.  When the BC becomes more focused on living the Word, rather than spewing the Word, and trite sayings like "too blessed to be stressed," perhaps the BC can get back on track.

The sad commentary is that we are our own worst enemy.  I am not saying there is no discrimination, no unjust police killings, or any such nonsense.  But other people are not blind to what Black people, and people of the BC treasure; “we” are conspicuous consumers.  We may wear $2,000 on our backs but not have $2,000 in our bank accounts.    And folks slay me with that nonsense “we have to dress up for Jesus,” “we have to give God our very best.”   What the heck does that mean when our clothes are clean (and I don’t mean the colloquialism  “clean” – just the “fresh from the laundry/cleaners” clean) and our hearts are dirty?

What I am saying is that the BC would be stronger, individually and collectively, had we not --

• fallen for easy credit, 
• perpetuated prosperity gospel,
• adopted the idea that if we just marry the prettiest (outwardly) woman or the preacher (or worse, just give the preacher our bodies), 
• indulged in self-promotion;
• made it practice to offer flimsy excuses for spiritually fallen leaders; or
• perpetuated a family dynasty in the pulpit, filling it with the progeny of leaders who may or may not be called to that duty.