Bishop Noel Jones & Dr. Jeremiah Wright - Uneducated Preachers, Prosperity Gospel & Mega-Churches

jeremiah right let's take this a step further if we might sir and ask you to comment on that same that same that same question what is it about so many african-american preachers uh that allows them to come to church every sunday morning and to and to preach until we shout and acquire sings until we shout but monday through saturday they ain't got no programs no services nothing serving african-american people what is it about that i mean i can't imagine king was a brilliant man but i can't imagine that he was so bright so bright that he understood how important that intersection is and that so many are missing that today what's wrong uh travis i want to join with other panelists and thanking you for assembling this group of persons i don't control the mic i'm sorry they can hear you now doc um but one of the there's several things and i was hoping dr taylor as the senior statesman on the panel would say something about this because he was a contemporary of dr kings but he's being kind the main issue we have not done cornell west always says we don't define terms so we talk all around stuff we haven't defined what the black church is now i'm going to come back to that in a moment but to respond to your question dr king was not popular among african americans until after he was dead all right dr king headed the southern christian leadership conference and to us up north that was their problem in chicago philadelphia new york the following was not large it was not large and in chicago the following was anti-cave chicago was the home of olivet baptist church joseph face jackson who sided with mayor daley they did not want king they didn't want jesse so he didn't have no following like until after you know like everybody walking around a piece of wood see this from the original cross everybody became a king follower after he was shot and killed so that because and one of the problems one of the problems that that causes what you're asking is dr king was seminary trained my brother all right so so where you get the com where you got the intersection of the social and the theological hermeneutic 90 of african american clergy persons are not seminary trained all right i can i cannot i cannot i cannot i cannot be a lawyer if i don't go to law school i cannot be a doctor if i don't go to med school but all i got to do is turn around my calling holy i got the anointing and i got 50 000 negroes following me all right so no it ain't what the theology of king the theology of king but then again i mean the theology of king trying to answer you that's that's one reason that's one reason all right but to try to follow through the whole the whole there's some other issues that they're late that's multi-layered in terms of the disconnect dr taylor also mentioned in the first rift for him at inter-denomination theological center which you said eugene about the disconnect between africa and african americans that's a that's a long long long historical problem and that goes back to the definition of the black church when you say the black church when we say the black church we got to realize we're talking about a kaleidoscope of reality in terms of theology in terms of hermeneutics in terms of training in terms of what have become known as denominations in terms of what it takes to start a church what kind of church turn your collar around you got a church what do you mean the black because to talk about to talk about perfecting to talk about city of refuge to talk about a national baptist progression the national baptist african methodist episcopal christian methodist you're talking all over the map in terms of what is the black church and there have been those different streams running through the definition historically since the 1700s and that are still there there's also been a disconnect as eugene said it between between african african americans but also between the living word that we hear on sunday and the life we have to live on monday uh kelly brown douglas says we can't talk about homosexuality because we can't talk about sexuality so that so that there's that kind of that that kind of perpetuated propagation of ignorance that goes on on sunday mornings that has nothing to do with the life i live on monday morning and it's not just in the mega churches it's in the storefront churches that will get me high for for two hours so i feel good but then i got to go back into hell on monday or sunday afternoon so that that's why king king no king had a large following of seminary in fact if you look at the guys and girls he he surrounded himself with that's one type of clergy that you do not find overwhelmingly standing in the purpose of the african-american pulpits in the year 2003. let me i want you to know i want you to note that as i ask this next question i'm looking this way i'm not trying to cast dispersion on anybody on this on this panel or the second panel i mean that sincerely but i'm looking this way because i want to pick up on something that that jeremiah wright raises without casting dispersion on anybody on this panel or the one coming behind us but jeremiah wright you raised an issue about the fact that when we called king the reverend dr martin luther king jr he sure enough was a reverend doctor martin luther king jr every black preacher i know wants to be called the reverend doctor so-and-so i'm looking this way everybody wants to be called the reverend doctor so-and-so no jones you are known as one of the foremost intellectuals in ministry in this country talk to me about the challenge that that presents for the african-american church when we have folks who are not trained in seminary and whether or not that is in fact is jeremiah right right is that a requirement given that so many of us believe that all you got to be a spirit field and if the lord speaks to you from on high that's all you need on sunday morning doc it's on uh i i i just want to say thanks for having me here i don't know how much gratitude i want to show right about now at least they won't say i'm playing favorites with my pastor not nonetheless i i think it's quite significant the point that uh dr wright is raising uh and i think it's essential that we define the 21st century church because from what i'm hearing it seems as if the church is actually the black preacher the church is the black creature it's from what i'm hearing it seems as if the church is a black preacher because the people in the pews don't set policy the the committees are losing their strength and if you notice carefully what has happened is when pentecostalism became the leading denomination and the fastest growing denomination it changed many dynamics in the whole traditional christian black african christian world what happens is the pentecostal's primary objective was to think heavenward if you were to consider the apostolic pentecostal in particular you will notice that the greatest thing that a person could achieve was the new birth experience the baptism in jesus name the receiving of the holy spirit now what happens there is that the focus immediately went to the other world into getting into heaven and the faith of the pentecostal was meet god have a spiritual experience let's get to heaven the traditional church on the other hand dealt so much with those contemporary things that were monday and monday to operate their lives that there was a problem between the pentecostals and the traditional church particularly when the pentecostal church literally evangelized the traditional church because it is out of the traditional church that many people went into the pentecostal movement and consequently there was a rift between both groups the neo-pentecostals the charismatics and the faith preachers they came along and took the faith to get to heaven and then they turned it into health wealth and prosperity and so so all of a sudden now we're teaching faith that was originally hebrews chapter 10 closing faith to salvation and it becomes a now faith as the substance of things hoped for of course and if the now was subject to subjective theology and it now began to deal with the issues of being rich having money this further divided us because now faith became became an individual affair so if you have the faith then of course you can get whatever you want from god so the church stopped dealing with the whole issues of suffering because under that presentation god will miraculously do things for you so if you come down the aisle with 20 or 30 and i lay hands on you then of course immediately all of your trials will be over now thing that happens here is because of this presentation because every presentation needs theology to make it strong if there's no hermeneutical substratum for this presentation then of course now we're going to have a problem because theology has to leave something in people's minds psychologically and if you tell me that god is going to bless me by simply bringing something to you and i don't have a plan because when i'm preaching and i'm making that presentation i have to have a plan and the plan is if i've got 6 000 people out there 3 000 will give me 25 but now what is the plan for those who brought the money well now now understand this understand this and and i'm in the middle of it myself i mean i'm in the middle of it myself understand this when people bring money based on the theology that god is supernaturally going to respond that eliminates the development theology that is necessary to make people change their lives and once the presentation is made people need opportunity now here's where opportunity comes because we don't have to ask committees anymore to decide who they want to be with and we have even eliminated using denomination as titles for our churches we don't call our churches particular baptist church or apostolic church today what we do is we give a name out there that everybody can come to that ministry and deal with that ministry because we don't want to be slated denominationalism we don't market denomination we market individuals today wherever you go the church is personality driven it is not institutionally driven any longer it's personality driven so the wonderful thing about it though because it's not all uh pejorative the wonderful thing about it is that you don't have to bring baptist methodists together for instance in my city i don't have to have city of refuge vote or decide to have anything to do with faithful central vote or decide to have anything to do with los angeles or decide to do anything with fame because it's not institutionally driven the churches don't have to come together but noel jones ought to get together with charles blake and charles blake ought to get together with chip murray and chip murray all together together with kenneth omer and put all our monies in the same bay and make the opportunity for the people in our churches because money talks in america let me no jones bless you yeah bishop jones uh they they they used to call y'all you forgive you forgive the phraseology they used to call y'all poverty pimps and now they call you prosperity preachers so the vernacular has changed i think that's a good thing from poverty pimps to prosperity preachers but shakespeare asked the question what's in a name a rose by any other name would still smell just as sweet whether it's poverty pimps or prosperity preachers there are a lot of folk who think there is too much focus too much emphasis in the black church on materialism on money on game you heard what james cohn said earlier talk to me about that and that and i raised that question on because i want to expand this conversation to talk about this this phenomenon called the mega church it seems to me as one on the outside looking in that one of the reasons why one of the reasons why the mega church is such a phenomenon now is we got people preaching every sunday you know that if you do this if you do that if you give me this if you do this you can have all of this so it's that prosperity message that i think is packing out some of these so-called mega churches but but talk to me about that if you will well one of the things that's so wrong is is that theology actually sets in the mind of people a certain psychological view of life particularly in a church situation where there is so much influence coming from the man who is standing as the voice of god and oftentimes it fails to deal with the real issues of suffering and the real issues of of of a problematic world and difficult times this is why america had so much difficulty dealing with 9 11 and 9 11 forced so many americans to even question the existence of god simply because they were not prepared for the tragedy that other people of the world go through all the time i i i i will i i will i will point out to you the the significance of of truth and again much of the problem the prosperity preaching and and even preaching period and i think the question has to be asked if you can't preach it in somalia is it gospel because oftentimes we have preached americanism for the gospel there there are no lotteries in in zimbabwe and so you can hit it rich in america quite easily but but but most of the time when people have made money and make it rich in america there was a plan somewhere there was a check in the mail but the check did not come from heaven it came from some specific place and certain circumstances allowed that money to come that way and oftentimes we have made ourselves rich simply preaching this hocus-pocus gospel and we have not developed the individuals to go after the opportunities that are before them and and and so so consequently we have a backlash because i go throughout the world and people will tell you i gave in every offering i did exactly what i was supposed to do and i'm still struggling to meet my rent i'm still having a hard time making my car payment but the bottom line is when you should have followed the stream of opportunities you were out partying and doing a whole lot of stuff that you shouldn't have been doing and one sermon is not going to change the outcome of your life you have to sow positively and ministry must put people in the frame of mind that moving from one stage to the other is a process there is no quick fix to our situation and so consequently it allows people to feel the stimulation of discipleship you have to be a disciple in order to move from one place to the other most of the fellows who made it rich in ministry are disciples of their ministry i mean they work on it night and day i have five million miles on american airlines alone i lost a wife running after ministry because everybody can't sit around and have you gone all the time oh i might as well be real with it uh uh we have gone after this stuff in a way where we are driven we are driven beyond the norm and all of a sudden now we're presenting a gospel that is to people no discipleship jesus had his fellows for three years we want to just wake up and get called and then we spiritualize every text uh uh one man said the lord spoke to me so he opened his bible and he pointed to the scripture and it said judas went and hung himself he said well let me try this again he flicked it open touch the next one and the scripture said go thou and do likewise he said well the baseball players get three tries so he opened it again they hit it again that that thou doest do it quickly there there there has to be some hermeneutics to our presentation but bishop a bishop let's be real about it since you said you want to be real there isn't a lot of hermeneutics to the theology what we get on television from these prosperity preachers what we get in our pulpits on sunday mornings from these prosperity preachers is that god told me that to ask you to put a hundred dollars in the offering this morning and that if you do that the lord told me to tell you because people are looking for a quick fix it's like it's like it's like most black people supported the 9-1-1 number with all the the the sorcerers and all the the people who were going to read palms that stuff was sent straight to black people because oftentimes we want a drug and the church becomes a drug where we can preach this is going to happen this is going to happen and people just subscribe but that's not the way it is you have to have discipline you cannot overlook the principles of god and god go against his principles and make you rich god is a god of principle that's why medical science works that's why aviation works that's why you can put a boat in the ocean and it goes across the sea because there are principles and people want to bypass principles because they lack discipline and the preacher wants to get rich on the ignorance of the people you've got to turn around and tell them the truth so that the only bentley in the driveway is not yours you got 20 out there very frankly and to the point isn't money well spent there's a big debate ongoing in our community about the millions upon millions upon millions of dollars that we spend building buildings james cohn raised his point earlier that we money we spend building buildings a lot of folk in this audience and i'm sure watching us around the country and around the world who question and i'm just asking the question here question whether whether or not it is money jeremiah right bishop you can get in on this a minute jeremiah if it's money well spent as opposed to spending that money on programs and on services we walk over homeless folk in some of these cities to get into the church is it money well spent uh i must point out that you have to go back home and your pastor said he wants to answer that i just want to point that out you got to go back to your pastor [Applause] and you see right after you you said you don't care bishop john let jeremiah right now said you will hear from him when you get home uh paul morton said if we don't have no authority then what are we leaving if your flock it ignores you on national television you need a disciple with some principles you have an unprincipled disciple over here um [Applause] having said that again again again we are playing with jello and the slippery all over the place when you say i just picture this picture this um picture this picture this as a congregation or gathering of the elders from judaism hasidic jew reformed your conservative jew jewish rabbi women you got a multiplicity of definitions there yes just remember we we're all over the place some churches yes it's being spent well other churches of course not some churches there are no bentleys in the driveway but as paul morton said you're doing millions in missions mega churches mega churches cannot have we have been supporting a hospital in salt pond for 15 years we built a computer school in salt pond a small church cannot do that we give away one tenth of our budget we've been giving we've given over a half million dollars united new york college fund we've given over half a million dollars in scholarship a small storefront cannot do that so yes but we ain't every church that's right we ain't every church because some churches have half a million dollar pastor anniversary hallelujah watch out now watch out watch out watch it so but again you're all over the place in terms of when you say is the money being spent by the mega churches you have to define and name what mega churches you're talking about you have to and that's what i would just warn so i would say in some instances and what you're talking about most of the time what we see on television no but that's not as as dr jim said that's not all mega churches jacqueline grant i saw your hand i want to come to you in one second because i don't want to be i don't want to be disfellowshipped when i get home to los angeles tomorrow morning so bishop jones by all means please speak sir well well well thank you tavis uh uh i don't have any problem with you telling me to shut up i mean that's fine but nevertheless i i will agree with with dr wright i think it's important for us to understand that the message one of my best friends and i argue all the time how does god give favor and i think the favor that god gives the preacher is is the message if he can touch the lives of people he will never build a building big enough to house all the people who will want to hear what he has to say there is no question in my mind but i have never heard of the deceitfulness of poverty i've heard of the deceitfulness of riches and and oftentimes what happens is when we get to a certain level in ministry we no longer feel what people feel we no longer understand what they feel for instance if we were having church here today in a crowd like this and i got finished preaching they would probably surround me so fast and walk me out of here so quickly that i wouldn't have an opportunity to shake anybody's hand or touch anybody at a certain point in ministry we no longer counsel so we don't talk to people so we don't know what their problems are at a certain point in ministry we move to the suburbs and and we no longer feel what people feel in the inner city and at us at a certain point in ministry we we lack absolutely nothing and it becomes difficult to relate again to people who are struggling and our offering taken offering taking sometimes reflects the fact that we don't have a clue about what people can or cannot give because we initially we just stand up and we begin to call money it is it is it's not that i'm saying that a preacher shouldn't have anything and a mega church shouldn't be there because if the message is there the church is going to be big and people are going to come and lots of money going to be distributed and the preacher might take one percent now of what comes in as opposed to 50 when it was small i'm not saying that that's a problem but i'm saying that every man needs somebody to answer to well well as as i was listening to the discourse uh on the other side uh and listening to ownership and just dealing with the issues dr dr elance mccarthy and in los angeles left me a couple of tips on my way here and he said on any given sunday you have 65 approximately 65 000 african-american churches on any given sunday that means you have 25 million members on every given monday they put in the bank 50 million on annually it is 2 billion the members spend in the american economy 300 billion dollars we're richer than many nations i am saying to myself as i thought about that and i listened to dr cones about us gathering together where there are no cameras what would happen in america if all of us would forget our denominational hang-ups and decided to bank in an international bank altogether now with those statistics dr mccarthy still says that 70 percent of our churches are turned down when they go to the bank what would happen if we if we leveraged that money all came together put in one place used all these brilliant black minds that we have to give us direction because as preachers often times we are just creative in the bible and when it comes to preaching every sunday your time is spent so much in studying the word of god and trying to deliver the word yet we have people in our congregations who are extremely astute at business and all kinds of other things why can't we humble ourselves a little bit let somebody put a program together somebody become our conscience bring us all together and make this thing work for all of us you asked you asked your question was about hiv aids right what is the black church not doing that we should be doing um i would say two things practically one doing what dr cohn and dr mckenzie said outright i hinted at it subtly by saying i want you to picture hasidic jew orthodox jew conservative jew reformed you jews would not have tv cameras present talking about the jewish community all right we need the first thing we need to be doing is what what dr cohen said and what vashtai said we need to have some a meeting privately to talk about among ourselves what we need to do collectively all right because the same issue that keeps coming up with this anti-intellectualism the same bifurcation between seminary non-seminary your theology you love that word but how you see god how you see if i see god as a male white long beard then i see humans anthropology is determined by my theology i see humans as male superior white male superior white men white women black men black women and hierarchically my theology has messed me up and how i see anthropology determines how i order my society theology determines anthropology determines social life but we can't talk about that in front of cameras because a lot of folk who think being saved means i'm no longer black we need to be locked to close the door lock horns and talk to one another all right but very practically very practical very practically i have been and i need tom joyner's help and i need the media now that he owns his own company maybe he can do this uh we need the media tavis we need the media too you too all right because you and tavis tavis and tom reach a hundred times more black folk than we do on sunday morning and they're listening to you all all right they're listening to hey tom we should start taking ties and offerings in and here here's the point here's the point what are the black church be doing well in addition to the whole theological understanding of sin and that aids is a biological issue not a theological one all right in addition to that put that one aside we need to do what we did back in the 60s mark martin asked dr taylor he's here he was there i was here the sit-ins the prayings all that wonderful public demonstration did nothing to change anything it brought public attention and the cameras but the changes came after the sit-ins were over after the waitings were over and the prayings were over we sat down with legislators to get laws changed you talking about public policy all right call it where it is your sermon until pfizer and merck and the pharmaceuticals do hear what they did in south africa and in brazil and allow generic drugs anti-retroviral everybody can't afford what magic johnson can afford and until we do that we ain't done nothing about aids so that's what the black church ought to be doing about age okay this question says it's from a black mother most of our men are in prison most of our children are failing in school most of us mothers are weary of trying to fix it all what is the black church's role in building up its families [Applause] the black church has hit the street the black church has to hit the street the reality is that young boys are being raised on the streets in the absence of responsible role models if we've got 65 000 black churches in america we have to ask ourselves why is there an inverse relationship between the presence of black churches and their relative absence on the corners and streets where our children live we've got a generation of orphans that in too many cases the black church is ignoring so we got to move from the pulpit and the pews into the streets and advocate for the widow and the orphan yes i just needed to to raise a question just so we can stay critically thinking people if we keep hearing over and over again is the black church healthy for black women that black women are 60 to 70 percent of our congregations they are mostly single mothers tired working giving too much money we only got 30 of the brothers there we working them to death because they're only 30 so they're doing everything who's gonna hit the street gene you want the women you want these single mothers who are already tired to hit the streets when you say the black church we need to hit the streets you talking about jackie's women who you talking about hitting the street let's be real let's don't do applause sound bites let's do some what do we do about the chur each church needs to do something hitting the streets might not necessarily be it she got to work every day she got quiet rehearsal check out bible study she ain't gonna hit no streets ain't got no time [Applause] hold up hold up ass miss duke [Applause] all right no no no no no no let me push back on that jeremiah oh no no no listen no doc no no that's too easy look there are black men in the churches there are black men in the churches and yeah hold up your church not all the time let's be specific you talk about your church no no i'm not talking about my church no i'm saying in black america on the planet earth in the hood you've taken that hold on hold on a second i'm saying no no no no because i'm saying that if we black preachers were to choose to set more examples where we connected hips with lips and we're available just visible doc i'm not saying that we gotta rub shoulders with the uncouth and the unwashed i'm simply saying that there is more that black men in the church can do to be visible and available to that mother they got that child that's all i'm saying doctor but they ain't the ones in church when you say the black church needs to hit the street we still got this nebulous what is the black church them brothers that made the babies they ain't coming up to listening to you which ones they ain't in the church which one they ain't coming to church so they ain't they already hitting it they're hitting it all right but then you know come on i don't know what to say i hear what he said no i didn't hear what he said what are you saying

Channel: Inspiration Station

Views: 333,752

Rating: 4.7563977 out of 5

Keywords: bishop noel jones, td jakes, jeremiah wright, black church, state of black church, state of black union, cornell west, bishop paul morton, george bloomer, prosperity gospel, prosperity preacher, rev ike, church money, preacher money, maranda curtis, tasha cobbs, tavis smiley, tavis smiley state of black union, td jakes prosperity, howard john wesley, praise break, cogic shout, cogic holy convocation, serita jakes, martin luther king jr, gardner c taylor, marvin winans

Id: -rzmmqFcb6Q

Length: 37min 10sec (2230 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 21 2020

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[u/virtualchurchtv]

This was an amazing video.