Check out my new article at HuffPost, “10 Thoughts on Tyler Perry and Bishop Jakes, Evangelicals, and Money”. Below is an excerpt.
8. If a church is the best looking and biggest site in an urban neighborhood I find that problematic. While for some it may suggest that we have put God first or it becomes a solace for poor people, I disagree. I believe it shows an otherworldliness theology and a neglect for the people and conditions around it. I do not believe God’s house needs to be “the most immaculate” particularly if God dwells in the hearts and minds of the poor and middle class congregants, then God also lives in their houses. So why do we neglect to rebuild or revitalize their houses with the same priority?
9. Anthea Butler wrote an article this summer where she makes a distinction between the God she serves and the racist God that conservatives have created. In the same vein, I’m beginning to think evangelicals are serving a totally different God than the one I fell in love with at 6-years-old, the one I dedicated three years of seminary to studying, and the one I made a commitment to during my AME ordination over ten years ago. Call me rouge or call me crazy, but I just think that I serve a totally different God than the money focused one I saw on the viral video and hear about in church rhetoric. My God is not capitalistic, sexist, homophobic, racist, etc. I’m so sorry to hear that yours is.
10. I predict the “culture of church” will be the death of the church. Until the church gets more focused on the teachings of Jesus and less focused on a manipulative concept of success, emotionalism, and dogmatism; it will always look like foolishness to outsiders and feel “only” like church to insiders.