What Else is Wrong with the Church

What else is wrong with the Church

Pastor Melissa Scott was a porn star/prostitute that got reborn, reformed, renewed and now other than being woman, she preaches a conservative message having taken over her deceased husband’s pulpit. Bishop Sue (UMC Virginia Annual Conference) and Bishop Dease (UMC North Georgia Annual Conference) lived privileged lives. They went to seminary, got church appointments, and got regular promotions for everything except actually growing a church and making converts and witnesses and now they are the biggest ‘woke’ liberal Bishops in the Conference of Bishops. You can read their bios and see how smoothly they rose from seminary, through the church and to the Episcopacy.

For the past 30 years the UMC has been vetting potential pastors like the CIA, Mossad, FBI, MI6 and the KGB, doing their best to select the most qualified and holy candidates. To see where it has gotten them, I think is self-evident in this age of denominational splintering, lawsuits, declining membership and declining relevance in Post-Modern America. If ever the words of the prophet Samuel, et al, were truer, clearly God has proved He looks at the hearts for successes in his Kingdom and not with the eyes of men (FBI trained in vetting or not). That is to say, valuing human and leadership qualities like ‘man’ values qualities and human experiences.

How is it rational that Pastor Melissa Scott, former porn star/prostitute preaches a conservative theology while Bishops Sue and Dease of the United Methodist Church with their ‘lifestyles of the plain, boring but yet still the powers that be are going to make them famous’, inherit the keys to the Methodist kingdom and then they turn right around, abandon the conservative values they grew up with (and swore to) and become the biggest flaming LGBTQIA supporters. How is that? Could I hazard a few guesses ladies and gentlemen? The problem with a ‘philosophy of youth’ is that if you don’t watch out, you will end up dead or way more conservative in your lifestyles and habits in the future. This is the case sexually and in terms of lifestyle. If it doesn’t kill you, it will make you a conservative.

When people ask me what my minor was in college I say in earnest ‘drunk driving’. Now I avoid drinking and driving like the plague (a conservative approach). I’ve gotten locked up for open containers (but not drunk driving) two or three times in my life in my 20’s and 30’s and the inconvenience was lesson enough.  In my 20’s I couldn’t afford to drink and smoke weed all day. In my 30’s I could, but in working a regular job, I had to structure my time. In my 40’s I could afford the money and the occasional time but I’m not the man I was then and nearly any over indulgence renders me sick and incapacitated for at least a day afterwards The same nearly goes for sex. Thank God I get good results but in all truth the results are not as ‘reliable’ or ‘reliably maintained’ as they once were. This breeds a natural kind of conservatism and desire not to put myself in as varied and variable structures with women as I once encouraged myself to find.

Youth and folly in essence make you conservative and/or make you slow down; that is, if youth and folly don’t kill you first. As is, in its worst forms youthful folly can kill you. Speeding, fighting, rivalry, casual sex, intoxicants, gambling and mixing them up can ruin your life and the lives of others. As the young men from the University of Georgia’s Championship team found out the hard way, one night of drunken carousing out at the strip club, and drag racing have killed two people and radically changed the trajectory of a life that until then, was slated to include an NFL payday and everything that comes with that for his family. He’ll still get the ‘payday’ but it won’t be as much as it could have been.

And yet we staff our churches with people that have lived lives, but slipped through the cracks of public punishment and pain. I’m not dumb enough to think Bishops Sue and Dease don’t have secrets and shames, failures and abnormal faults, but to have slipped through the cracks all their lives and never been caught is the issue. They have never been forced to take public accountability for their peccadilloes. Now the Institution and Administration of the United Methodsit Church begins calling that (being sinless on paper and with FBI style interrogation and investigation) a prerequisite to holiness and fitness for high office and command in the church. This is a complete misreading of the purpose and design of the church’s offices. ‘Slipping through the cracks’. One’s credit is checked, one’s criminal history is checked and these are made use of to disqualify people for ministry in the mainline denominations. Only to realize it wasn’t the people you ‘let’ in that skewed liberal, it was the very people you picked because their lives ‘looked’ so in line and tone with their conservative values and having lived lives conspicuously conservative by the absence of great sins that fuck up your credit and criminal history.

When I use the phrase ‘slipping through the cracks’ I do so quite intentionally. Bishops Sue and Dease are ‘woke’ now but ain’t no way in hell they would have made it through district and annual conference ordination interviews, dissertations, rites and ceremonies with that liberal crap they spout now. Were they simply naïve or lying then? Do they want us to believe their hearts were ‘in the right place’ (if their lips and oaths to the boards of ordained ministry weren’t) and ultimately would end up dismantling the church’s conservative traditions and stance on sexuality? Were they righteous ‘then’ when they were lying to the boards of ordained ministry when they swore to uphold the discipline and the traditional teachings of the church? Were Bishops Dease and Sue ‘agents’ simply saying whatever it took to get through and biding their time to infiltrate the church and then transform it into something unrecognizable to the teachings of the Apostles? What deviousness. What crafty machinations. And these are the kind of either theologically naïve or politically astute manipulators Methodists keep getting as bishops and in high office as authorities in the United Methodist Church!

They lied to somebody to get where they are now or they are lying to us now. Watch this (to use a nigga preaching phrase). Jesus taught do as I do. That is how Jesus taught, that was his pedagogy. Bishop Bishop Dease is in the closet like Stacy Abrams apparently (as literally nothing is said on UMC websites about her marital status). Bishop Sue we are told is relatively happily married to a man of the opposite sex. Why does not Bishop Sue want for us what she uses for herself and what apparently has worked so well for her and not coincidentally perhaps, is completely in line with biblical tradition? It works for her, why would she encourage the church to abandon the idea of teaching that marriage between men and women ‘works’ best. Did it not work well for her? Do she and her husband live in misery? Does she hate him and think he is holding her back from her real self (as the one of the most powerful human beings male or female in the United Methodist Church)? Is that not a form of hypocrisy, even if it is a mild form.

Let us be frank, Bishop’s Sue and Dease lied to somebody to get their positions in as much as they can change their opinions on something so important and fundamental as human sexuality that quickly (between the time of their ordination as pastors in the UMC to their time in the Bishopric). And this is apparently a fitness for bishop! In 1999 you were swearing on bible and verse to uphold the discipline and traditional views on sex and sexuality. Within 10 years you have radically redefined your position and your oath and now you are proclaiming gay marriage off the rooftops, church steeples, mountains, glens and dales! Was it for money and position? Okay what was it for? Did you really not believe all that man and woman stuff when you swore to the District Committee on ordained ministry, when you swore to the Annual Conference Board of Ordained Ministry and when you swore before an agent of the same Episcopacy you now represent! Surely you wouldn’t encourage candidates who come before you to lie and be crafty with secret and hidden agendas, hiding their true thoughts or even arguing that things they are swearing to now, in 10 years they can change to the exact opposite position? Wavering 180 degrees in 10 years is now looked at in the Methodist, Episcopal, Presyberterian, UCC and Church of England like a qualification for Bishop and high office. That is to say the ability and predilection to change one’s mind on once basic, fundamental, values that you swore to for ordination purposes and to rise with higher and higher confidences in the church is now a pre-requisite for Bishop and High Office.

Pastor Melissa Scott was a prostitute/porn star. Imagine her telling the DCOM (District Committee on ordained Ministry) that ‘two years ago I was a porn star but I been getting into the word’. But yet 20 years later Pastor Melissa Scott is conservative (at least as regards sexuality and marriage). Representatives of the United Methodist Church (Bishops Sue and Dease), or for that matter Presbyterian and Episcopalian church that interviewed her for ministry and grilled her about her past now supports gay marriage and transvestites hosting children’s bible story hour! Who’d a thunk it! Gosh.

I’m amazed what good little administrators Bishops Sue and Dease claim to be in the new UMC, shorn of its conservatives. As bad as things are my heart dropped when I saw the new UMC propaganda patting itself on the back with the argument that most of the churches that chose to disaffiliate were southern and White, with male pastors. Straight out of the ‘wokeness’ playbook, this was done to disrespect, demonize and most importantly negate the American conservative wing’s actions and opinions. Note the Liberal UMC Bishops happened not to include or cite the global methodist church, which is Black and brown and overwhelmingly conservative and traditional in their interpretation of sex and gender. They singled out White southern males as though they were the only forces of conservatism and reaction, seeking to score a cheap public relations victory. We used to be proud (if inconvenienced) of the ‘Bible Belt’, no gambling, no liquor sales, and ‘blue’ laws down south. Now the potentates of the UMC are mocking ‘the old south’ and it’s Black and White Conservative traditions like it is a symbol of racism and sexual oppression. What is altogether worse is that I know the truth. The only reason Black UMC churches haven’t splintered is because they can’t afford to monetarily and are too weak from a pastoral and ‘member culture’ perspective to do so. They’ve been on the dole, on the UMC welfare roles so long just to survive as a congregation they don’t care who is now paying, what their theology is, or what they are calling themselves if they are still paying. They are like slaves who having been freed are still loath and afraid to run off the plantation or simply take over the plantation and dare anyone to run them off because in the backs of their minds they believe they cannot survive without White authority and/or the shelter of being affiliated with Whites, even reprobate and heretical Whites. And we would be foolish to think this only applies to Black UMC’s either. It is the state of the Black man economically, politically and culturally in America at length, width, breadth and in detailed relief.

Pastor Melissa, former prostitute/porn star vs. Bishop Dease and Sue. Who do you think knows more about the effects of sexual sin, depravity, and perversion? That’s a rational question. Just off the top of your (the reader’s head), who do you think knows more about the effects of sexual liberality? Pastor Melissa is preaching a conservative message. Bishop’s Sue and Dease are preaching Sam Smith performances at the next Annual Conference. Ostensibly, they liberalize to reach out. Reach out? Of what are you going to convince them of in the Church will ‘help’ them if they don’t think they need ‘help’ and you agree with them? Slipping through the cracks, coming to God without conviction of sin (public or private); let it be anathema. Seriously, why join the church at all. If the church already agrees with what you are doing, you have no need of repentance or the church. That is a Christian crime against humanity to offer that ‘religion lite’ to the world; a Christianity that never thinks you’re sinning and doesn’t think sin exists. And thus doesn’t think you need a savior to help clean you up. Why join at all! If the church already agrees with what you’re doing you have no need for repentance. The whole original premise of being Baptized for sin, presumes people feel sinful. Nobody wants to get baptized if they are not being accused of being sinful and (as it were) convinced of it by good preachers and biblical teachers. No one wants to get Baptized until they are accused and believe that are being sinful and operating out of a sinful nature, for which the only cure is doing your best to live biblical proscriptions for a God approved life (for instance living the 10 commandments). God’s grace is for trying and failing, not the church telling people they don’t have to try to ‘clean up’ at all! You can’t preach baptism and then simultaneously preach nobody needs baptism because they aren’t sinning, at the same time. Jesus defended himself saying ‘a house divided cannot stand’; how could He be of Beelzebub and cast out Beelzebub/demons at the same time. These liberal Bishops do not even defend themselves. The Bishops and the institutional church ‘proclaiming’ a gospel hinged upon sin and redemption and at the same time telling the world nobody is sinning and thus needful of the church and redemptive theological structures and philosophies. What did Jesus die for in these circumstances if the church is telling them no one is sinning or that the only people sinning are racists, bigots and homophobes, no one else is sinning? I dare the bishops Dease and Sue to say Sam Smith’s performance at the Grammys was a sin against God, the Holy Ghost and the Son but they called southern White male former Christian denominational Wesleyan associates and covenant believers sinful and worthy of sanction and criticism because they are bigots and homophobes because they don’t support LGTQBIA agendas and ‘wokeism’, or that every issue in church and society has to be looked at from issue of race and taught from the perspective of race. Not every single issue, as it were religiously. Every confrontation with the world, the church backs down, well the bishops and powers that be back down, the local churches act confused and keep doing whatever it is they were doing, hoping that someone above their paygrade fixes it. But what will most probably end up happening is that people above their paygrade will end up selling their local churches and using the proceeds to fund their legal cases and arguments for the LGBTQIA and ‘woke’ racial agendas.

Where is the church? In what was formerly known as the ‘Bible Belt South’ it could just as well now be Las Vegas. No one bats an eye at gambling. Commercials come on television where dens of gambling are said to make people happy and afford an honorable lifestyle. But hell, nobody is sinning according to our newfangled bishops and nobody needs a church lifestyle and offerings and sacrificial giving, instead of sacrificial giving to the one armed bandits, digital gambling machines in every gas station (people pushing buttons like lab rats or monkeys pushing a level for a reward), the lotto corporation and its affiliated industries. The gambling industry claims what it pays in taxes and assorted benefits outweighs the danger done to people’s lives. They claim they are going to support schools and public works, but everything is worse. I’m not against legal gambling, abortion, or prostitution because it is not a legal or using the compulsive power of the state issue for me, it is a religious issue and a hearts and minds issue dealing with the hearts and minds of people and common sense and dignity. It is a hearts and minds issue for the church not a legal, legalism and juridical and law related issue for the church and thus not a quasi-military battle using the compulsive powers of the state.

Legal or not, gambling is not good as a habit. It’s a disgrace before God we niggers gamble and play lotto like we do. In the Hip-Hop world playing dice, shooting craps and shit like that is so prevalent a member of the Migos got killed at a dice event that got out of hand. But yet we use capitalism so ineffectively in our underdeveloped and undercapitalized communities. Using capitalism is just gambling with a higher degree of skill and knowledge such that one tries to remove as much ‘sheer randomness’ out of it as possible. We don’t do that though, we have romanticized the illegal shit people do on street corners, in bathrooms and against project walls. We take a blind ten million to one chance we make an investment in the lotto that pays off rather than invest in the productive capacity of the people around you and start a business or commercial concern. While there is no guarantee of success the odds of knowledgeably and skillfully creating a business would certainly be better than 10 million to one (like the lotto) if you and your buddies that started the business were successful.

This are examples of somethings the Bible teaches that rob us of dignity. There are things that rob us of dignity and there tend to be prohibitions against that. And we rob God of dignity. Prostitution (for instance) robs a person of dignity. Slavery tends to rob a person of dignity.  He who communicates through the Holy Ghost, Will and Intelligence to accuse of communicating through divination of numbers. Does God need the lotto or to make you win the lotto to please you? Has He no other way(s) to make you happy? Furthermore in the natural, very few lotto winners come out unscathed relative to their children, marriages, families etc. It is almost as if the winnings are cursed. I won’t say that, but the statistics seem to say it. There are things that rob us of dignity to God and quite importantly self-dignity. We know damn well what 13 billion years of earth evolution have taught us with regard to mammals, sex and reproduction, dependence on drugs, alcohol, gambling and yes, irreligiosity and thankfulness to God and what they have gotten humans in the annals of recorded human history. To have social and political organizations and institutions that encourage the worshipping of self instead of God, all degrade man and do not elevate him. But man ends up having to learn the hard way of that truth until we are completely debauched and degraded, filthy and proud of it; like Christina Aguilera prancing around celebrating how ‘dirty’ she is.

Yes Bishops, the masses are in absolutely no need of your baptism, without need of your chastening rod, no need of your preaching, because you have forgiven them of their sins before they even heard the word (as written). The chastening rod is the shepherd’s tool is it not? The ‘sheep’ are in no need of your voice at all, it is not ‘correcting’ them because you absolved them from the need for correction. Sheep you will not call back, sheep you will not correct, sheep you will allow to roam (as it were) at will. And this is now the qualification for a Bishop. Glory to God. The people are in no need of ‘correction’ and thus repentance, baptism. The people feel no need of your teachings which inhibit their freedom in the name of protection from wolves. We haven’t seen wolves in a long time they proclaim. The shepherd just wants to control us, not protect us. He is a control freak, you cannot trust him. Let us sheep push the boundaries further and further exploring new lands, surely there are other ‘calm waters’ besides the ones the shepherd knows. Wolves aren’t real, they are just the fantasies of broke shepherds; conniving broke shepherds at that. With old tales, myths, talisman and magic all designed to make him the hero. And yet, what is the use of Shepherds who never correct?

I’ve noticed they are making all of these Black women Bishops as if being the bishop of a carcass of a conference of churches is better than being Bishop of a living breathing church. They’ve never grown a church, just gotten appointments all up the ladder of appointments based on the strengths and tolerances of existing churches. They feed off the flesh of churches with 70% of the members over 60 and whose mortgages were paid off in 1943. Pastors and Bishop of carcasses. You can stick ineffective colored female or male pastors since there are the members are too old to know the difference as they have not had a dynamic minister since 1963. These churches can afford to pay these ineffective pastors god money for long enough for them to be promoted and made Bishop and the Conference keeps sending them female pastors from White seminaries and that have ingratiated themselves to White people positions. The present UMC is a carcass, and all of the vultures and parasites are coming out to feed. All kinds of shit is laying eggs in that decaying rotting carcass and the resulting spawn will not be pretty. Indeed, perhaps I am one of those spawns.