DEDICATED TO ELDER HAMPTON, A HUMBLE, BUT TRUE MAN OF GOD

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

"IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"

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Every since I wrote the column "Crabs in a Barrel," the gross hypocrisy of South Carolina State Senator, Rev. Darrell Jackson, has lingered with me. In that column I describe how the Black, South Carolina State Senator, who was also the pastor of the 10,000 member, "Family Way Bible Life Center Church," came out against Senator Barack Obama afer selling his support to Senator Hillary Clinton for $10,000 a month--a dollar amount that corresponded exactly with the number of members he had in his church.
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Now, as I drive through the Black community and see the magnificent "houses of God" towering over the community in the midst of poverty, social need, and in some cases, squalor all around them, I can't help but wonder how many of them are really doing God's work.
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When I look at those resplendent edifices, it takes me back to a little storefront church on a 108th and Juniper in Watts, where my grandmother first sent me for religious instruction--she was ill at the time, so she couldn't take me to "the big church" in which she was a member.
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I'll never forget that little storefront church. It stood down the street and in the shadow of a huge and elaborately appointed Catholic church, seemingly, almost as an afterthought. It was so small and had so few members that the thought of attracting a true "ordained man of God" was out of the question, so we had to settle for a little, unassuming man that we used to refer to as Elder Hampton. That little church was the closest thing to worshiping in someone's living room as you could get, but to this day, whenever I begin to lose faith in the basic goodness of my fellow man, or even remotely begin to contemplate God, I think of that little storefront church.
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If I'd remained at that church, I don't know what I would have been doing today. My young instincts led me to become so close to Elder Hampton that I might have even become a preacher. He used to take me with him to visit the old, the poor, and the sickly in the neighbor. Black, Mexican, young, old, Baptist or Catholic, he didn't care what a person was—if they were sick or in need, they were all a part of his flock.
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Looking back on it, I don't know where he found the resources. He certainly didn't get it from our little collection plate—we were so poor and so few in number he couldn't have gotten more than ten dollars a Sunday out of us, max. But in spite of that, he was no Sunday preacher. He was a full-time man of God--if you were sick or in need, you could count on him seven days a week. But after my grandmother had an operation and finally got over her illness, they took me to the "big church," and I never saw Elder Hampton again, but his influence has remained constant in my life to this day—in fact, though I must admit that I'm rarely found in church these days, it is his lingering influence that's led me to write this article, and everything else that I write.
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The first time I went to the big church I was completely overwhelmed with the opulence of it all. Shortly before I arrived, the church had just imported in a new fireball of an ordained minister direct from Dallas, Texas. He was nothing like the quiet and humble Elder Hampton. He had a big booming voice, wore shinny Florsheims, expensive suits, and a sense of importance just oozed from every pore of his body. When this man walked into a room it sucked all the oxygen out of the place--you just knew you were in the presence of someone significant.
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And God must have loved this magnificent church the minister headed--the choir alone in this ornate house of God was larger by a factor of three than the entire membership of the little church I'd grown accustomed to, and the choir pit was twice as large as the room where we held Sunday school. The parking lot of the church was filled with big, expensive cars, and a limousine was often parked next to the front entrance. In addition, City Councilmen and other politicians were counted among its membership, and a well known entertainer, Billy Preston, was the church organist. In a church like this you didn't have to wait to get to heaven--every Sunday you were right there. The only problem was, after services you had to return to reality, which was more often than not, a life of pure hell.
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I've often wondered what Elder Hampton would have done with all of those resources. But I couldn't imagine Elder Hampton heading a magnificent place like this. But since he wasn't "ordained," it wasn't even an issue. He never would have even been considered to head a place like this in the first place. I don't care how Godly you were, stature took precedence there–if Moses wanted to head the church, they'd want to inspect his credentials. But even if Elder Hampton would have been ordained, he was much too humble a man to be embraced by the high-powered people in this membership. With his quiet, unassuming demeanor, even as a member, he would have been a back-bencher—politely tolerated, but scarcely noticed.
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And further, Elder Hampton wouldn't begin to know how to manage the resources of a huge church like this. While he was definitely a man of God, he wasn't a practical man. He probably would have squander all the church's resources on the "no-account sinners" in the surrounding community.
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He was just too impractical. He probably would have setup a soup kitchen and built a dormitory to house the homeless at night, and hired unemployed mothers to start a low-cost daycare center on the church grounds during the day. Then it wouldn't be no time at all before he'd dig up the church's beautiful grounds, trying to put up basketball courts and a recreation building to draw young people off the streets after school. And of course, between the kids during the day, the teenagers in the early evening, and the homeless at night, it would cost the church a fortune just to keep up the grounds and repair damages to the building.
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Much of the congregation would have been in an uproar over the chaos he'd create. And it would go far beyond simply chaos. He would have long since lost most of the influential politicians. Every Sunday he'd be hounding them at church, and calling them at home during the week, trying to get them to create Empowerment Zones, and Special Need Zones to establish low-cost loans to help the surrounding neighbors to purchase and fix-up the houses they were living in. It's no wonder he'd drive the politicians out of the church. How could he expect these busy men and women to worship God in peace with him buzzing around like a gadfly trying to get them to help the poor?
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No, Elder Hampton's heart was in the right place, but he'd have been much too impractical to run a big church like this. He was a God loving man, but he lacked common sense. He thought when God said Love thy neighbor, he meant it. What a fool.
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Yeah, Elder Hampton would have been a back-bencher at that church. He would have been the fool sitting way in the back--with Jesus.

*****

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."

Matthew 6:1-34

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Elder Hampton, God knew of the good works that you did in secret . . . And unbeknownst to you, he sent a child to record your deeds, and to absorb your Godly essence. 

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DEDICATED TO ELDER HAMPTON - A MAN OF GOD

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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Religious Hatred and Bigotry: Would A Loving God Do This To Us?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Religious Hatred and Bigotry: Would A Loving God Do This To Us?

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In God We Trust.  REALLY!!!?

Many people who profess to be “of faith” are involved in religion for the wrong reasons. They're not about love; they're about hating everybody who don't think exactly like they do. They use religion to justify their bigotry, as a "God-approved" reason to hate everybody who's not on "their team," or who is different from themselves.
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In fact, religion FUELS every other form of bigotry there is. If you look at ANY form of bigotry, you’ll find religion at its root. As we saw in Paris, France, ORGANIZED religion is the most prolific instigator of hatred in the world. Just think about the irony of a military Chaplain - “Dear Lord, please help us to kill more of them than they do of us. Amen.”
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Would God bestow such a malevolent force of hatred upon man.  I don't think so. When God created human beings, we weren't created to require either a "User's Guide," soothsayers, or other "anointed" men to tell us how to conduct our lives. We were given individual intellect and a conscience to help us navigate our way through life.  As I've pointed out many times before, when my neighbor is at work and his beautiful young wife comes out in the yard and flashes her beautiful smile in my direction, I don't need a book or a preacher to tell me what's appropriate conduct and what's not. The minute my mind goes astray I can hear God's voice - "Now, Eric, you know what you're thinking is not right, so just wave, go in the house, and take a cold shower." And in response, I do just that - problem solved.
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And if you look at nature, even a dog will look over his shoulder before he steals a chicken wing off a table. So even he has a sense of right and wrong. In addition, Whales and other aquatic animals have an innate sense of when to migrate to other waters and where to go to spawn. And migratory birds don't need a calendar and compass to know when to fly South, and in which direction it lies. It was built into their DNA. The same is true of man.

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Man was created with an innate sense of spirituality, and a knowledge of how he should live his life. The problem is, man is in transition. We were created to grow into much more enlightened beings, but at this point in our development the animalistic emotions triggered by our still very active brain stem are in direct conflict with our higher cognitive sense of self and the world around us. As a result, instead of using our growing cognition to seek enlightenment, many of us direct our intellectual energy toward satisfying our more basic, and animalistic needs, or the seven deadly sins - Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony.
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That's where organized religion comes in. It reflects man's attempt to control the minds of other men in order to more efficiently pursue his baser needs. They promote wrath among their fellow men through the use of creed in order to promote their greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. And while I don't intend to become blatantly political here, I'd be remiss by not pointing out that every one of those "deadly sins" are uniquely characterized by the Religious Right and the GOP - especially wrath, greed, and gluttony.
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But of course, not all people of faith are bad. I know wonderful people of many faiths, but they're generally the ones who are more spiritual than dogmatic. But many of these Bible-thumpin’, Amen-Corner kind of people better HOPE that Hell’s a myth, however, because if it’s real, God’s going to be dumpin’ them in there by the church-loads.
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If God intended to hand down religion to guide us, wouldn't he have sense enough to just create ONE religion so his word would be clear and we wouldn't have anything to fight over? Religious organizations were organized by man for the expressed purpose of saying, "We’re Godly, and we’re God’s chosen people. Everyone who's different from us and who don’t adhere to our creed are heathens. They're not of God. They're evil, so we have God's permission to destroy them." It's that attitude that is the source of the world’s hatred and animosity.
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A loving God wouldn't put anything that caused that kind of hatred and division on Earth. It would contradict his purpose, and God's not stupid. He'd know that creating more than one religion would be in direct opposition to the Biblical prescription to "Love thy neighbor." Just imagine what the world would be like if there was no such thing as Christians, Muslims, or Jews, and if all the people of faith in the world were simply spiritual and embraced the wonder of creation. The world would be a much better place, because it would simply be broken down into good people as oppose to bad people, and there would be no creeds for the demagogues to use to divide us. Now, THAT, would be the work of God.   
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So if Americans truly believed in the Bible, they would demonstrate that fact by reading and adhering to ALL of the Bible, and not just those parts that they find convenient. But it's clear that just about every church in America has missed the part below. If they followed the scripture below, there'd be no screaming and begging preachers, and there'd be no Bible-thumping  hypocrites - in fact, there wouldn't be a such thing as ORGANIZED religion, because everybody would simply be spiritual. But don't take my word for it. After all, as many preachers would no doubt say, I could be "working for the Devil."  But here's what the Bible says, in clear, and unequivocal prose:

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“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."
Matthew 6:1-34
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Is that clear enough?  So who are you going to believe, your silver-tongued, big car driving pastor, or the Bible?
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God, Creation, And Man

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So does God even exist? Yes, and I can prove it. God is whatever force is responsible for what we define as reality. So if reality exists, God must exists. That definition changes the discussion of whether or not God exists, to one of defining the nature of his existence (I'm simply using "his" as a convenient chauvinistic pronoun to avoid having to struggle with the question of whether God is a male, female, or simply an it). But I don’t believe that God is directly interacting with man, or anything else in the universe that he created. For me, God, Nature, and the Universe are one and the same, so everything in the universe, including man, is a part of God, and we can only know his will by his nature, and what he has done.
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What Does This Have To Do With God?

Thus, what "people of faith" call "faith," is not a faith in God at all, it's a faith in what another man has TOLD them about God, so it's actually a faith in man. What most people have "faith" in is merely a parochial accident of birth. The very same person who has "faith" in Christianity in Georgia, would have "faith" in Islam if he'd been born in Iran, or "faith" in Judaism if he'd been born in Israel. In short, we have "faith" in what we were taught, not God.  God is simply what we use to JUSTIFY our "faith."
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God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to THINK, not to have "faith" in the contrived delusions of other self-serving and/or superstitious men. Every other species on Earth has sense enough to adhere to their nature but man, and if you'll notice, man is also one of the few species who can't live in harmony within his environment. In fact, our idiocy threatens to destroy ALL life on this planet.
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Man is on a huge ego trip. There are over 200 billion stars in just this speck of a galaxy, and even though it is a speck in terms of the universe, you'd have to travel 186,000 miles every second for four and a half YEARS just to get to the next closest star in our galaxy - and again, there are over 200 billion of them, and there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies just like ours in the universe. So believe me - God is not as fixated on man as man would like to believe. In cosmic terms of significance, man is not even one thousandth as significant as one grain of sand on all of the beaches on Earth and beneath the sea.
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Thus, it is only man’s arrogance and tremendous ego that makes him think that God is more concerned about him than he is anything else he created in the universe? Consider this - did he send his "Only begotten flea" to save all the fleas in the world? If not, why not? What makes man think he’s more important than anything else that God created?
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Another thing that betrays man's gross arrogance is our belief that we’re so important that God is going to jump through hoops to gain our favor. God’s not stupid. He's no more going to do magic tricks and jump through hoops to get man to worship him than any man would tap dance and do headstands to get the germs under his toilet seat to worship him. Yet, countless men, women, and children are dying every year in the ridiculous conviction by many that they’re acting on God’s behalf.
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When I was a young kid, I would be walking into trees because I had my eyes closed praying that God wouldn't condemn me to Hell for the common sense - that he gave me - that kept popping up in my head. As much as I wanted to be "a child of God," I just couldn't get myself to believe in talkin' snakes - and I wasn't a big enough hypocrite to try to lie to him about it. So I had a problem. My religious training had me CONVINCED that I was doomed to go to Hell because I couldn't bring myself to believe in that nonsense. But at about the age of ten I said a simple prayer that freed me of that burden: "Lord, Please give me the wisdom to know the truth, and give me the strength and determination to carry it through."  It was a childish prayer, and not very eloquent, but it did the trick. That was one prayer that God definitely answered, because when I opened my eyes, I was free of preachers. It freed me to think for myself, and while you'll never see me in church, I still say that prayer every night . . . if I haven't drank too much gin.  So yeah, I'm flawed, but I'm sure God knows my heart is in the right place, and that's what counts. 
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And finally, before you write me off as an agent of the Devil, you should ask yourself the following - when was the last time that Satan sent a message to mankind to stop killing each other?  And if God indeed "works in mysterious ways," how do you know it wasn't God's will for you to read this message?  And the basic message is short and sweet - we need to wake up, rein in our egos, and come to terms with our gross stupidity regarding God.

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Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
John 8:32
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http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-blind-faith-of-organized-religion.html

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Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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An Easter Sunday Sermon From a Non-Preacher, Who's Not Asking For a Dime

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

"IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"

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Every since I wrote the column "Crabs in a Barrel," the gross hypocrisy of South Carolina State Senator, Rev. Darrell Jackson, has lingered with me. In that column I describe how the Black, South Carolina State Senator, who was also the pastor of the 10,000 member, "Family Way Bible Life Center Church," came out against Senator Barack Obama afer selling his support to Senator Hillary Clinton for $10,000 a month--a dollar amount that corresponded exactly with the number of members he had in his church.
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Now, as I drive through the Black community and see the magnificent "houses of God" towering over the community in the midst of poverty, social need, and in some cases, squalor all around them, I can't help but wonder how many of them are really doing God's work.
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When I look at those resplendent edifices, it takes me back to a little storefront church on a 108th and Juniper in Watts, where my grandmother first sent me for religious instruction--she was ill at the time, so she couldn't take me to "the big church" in which she was a member.
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I'll never forget that little storefront church. It stood down the street and in the shadow of a huge and elaborately appointed Catholic church, seemingly, almost as an afterthought. It was so small and had so few members that the thought of attracting a true "ordained man of God" was out of the question, so we had to settle for a little, unassuming man that we used to refer to as Elder Hampton. That little church was the closest thing to worshiping in someone's living room as you could get, but to this day, whenever I begin to lose faith in the basic goodness of my fellow man, or even remotely begin to contemplate God, I think of that little storefront church.
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If I'd remained at that church, I don't know what I would have been doing today. My young instincts led me to become so close to Elder Hampton that I might have even become a preacher. He used to take me with him to visit the old, the poor, and the sickly in the neighbor. Black, Mexican, young, old, Baptist or Catholic, he didn't care what a person was—if they were sick or in need, they were all a part of his flock.
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Looking back on it, I don't know where he found the resources. He certainly didn't get it from our little collection plate—we were so poor and so few in number he couldn't have gotten more than ten dollars a Sunday out of us, max. But in spite of that, he was no Sunday preacher. He was a full-time man of God--if you were sick or in need, you could count on him seven days a week. But after my grandmother had an operation and finally got over her illness, they took me to the "big church," and I never saw Elder Hampton again, but his influence has remained constant in my life to this day—in fact, though I must admit that I'm rarely found in church these days, it is his lingering influence that's led me to write this article, and everything else that I write.
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The first time I went to the big church I was completely overwhelmed with the opulence of it all. Shortly before I arrived, the church had just imported in a new fireball of an ordained minister, direct from Dallas, Texas. He was nothing like the quiet and humble Elder Hampton. He had a big booming voice, wore shinny Florsheims, expensive suits, and a sense of importance just oozed from every pore of his body. When this man walked into a room it sucked all the oxygen out of the place--you just knew you were in the presence of someone significant.
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And God must have loved this magnificent church the minister headed--the choir alone in this ornate house of God was larger by a factor of three than the entire membership of the little church I'd grown accustomed to, and the choir pit was twice as large as the room where we held Sunday school. The parking lot of the church was filled with big, expensive cars, and a limousine was often parked next to the front entrance. In addition, City Councilmen and other politicians were counted among its membership, and a well known entertainer was the church organist. In a church like this you didn't have to wait to get to heaven--every Sunday you were right there. The only problem was, after services you had to return to reality, which was more often than not, a life of pure hell.
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I've often wondered what Elder Hampton would have done with all of those resources. But I couldn't imagine Elder Hampton heading a magnificent place like this. Since he wasn't ordained, he never would have even been considered to head a place like this in the first place. I don't care how Godly you were, stature took precedence there–if Moses wanted to head the church, they'd want to inspect his credentials. But even if Elder Hampton would have been ordained, he was much too humble a man to be embraced by the high-powered people in this membership. With his quiet, unassuming demeanor, even as a member, he would have been a back-bencher—politely tolerated, but scarcely noticed.
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And further, Elder Hampton wouldn't begin to know how to manage the resources of a huge church like that. While he was definitely a man of God, he wasn't a practical man. He probably would have squander all the church's resources on the no-account sinners in the surrounding community.
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He was just too impractical. He probably would have setup a soup kitchen and built a dormitory to house the homeless at night, and hired unemployed mothers to start a low-cost daycare center on the church grounds during the day. Then it wouldn't be no time at all before he'd dig up the church's beautiful grounds, trying to put up basketball courts and a recreation building to draw young people off the streets after school. And of course, between the kids during the day, the teenagers in the early evening, and the homeless at night, it would cost the church a fortune just to keep up the grounds and repair damages to the building.
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Much of the congregation would have been in an uproar over the chaos he'd create. And it would go far beyond simply chaos. He would have long since lost most of the influential politicians. Every Sunday he'd be hounding them at church, and calling them at home during the week, trying to get them to create Empowerment Zones, and Special Need Zones to establish low-cost loans to help the surrounding neighbors to purchase and fix-up the houses they were living in. It's no wonder he'd drive the politicians out of the church. How could he expect these busy men to worship God in peace with him buzzing around like a gadfly trying to get them to help the poor?
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No, Elder Hampton's heart was in the right place, but he'd have been much too impractical to run a big church like that. He was a God loving man, but he lacked common sense. He thought when God said Love thy neighbor, he meant it. What a fool.
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Yeah, Elder Hampton would have been a back-bencher at that church. He would have been the fool sitting way in the back--with Jesus.

*****

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."

Matthew 6:1-34

 

Elder Hampton, God knew of the good works that you did in secret . . . And unbeknownst to you, he sent a child to record them. 

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DEDICATED TO ELDER HAMPTON - A MAN OF GOD

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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Does God Love White People More Than He Loves Blacks? - Because they're Sure Rewarded Better

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Does God Love White People More Than He Loves Blacks? - Because they're Sure Rewarded Better

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Even as a kid, I saw the cat danglin’ out the bag that let me know that my "pastor" was standing up there in the pulpit spewing a lot of total nonsense. Every week he’d stand there screamin’ at us about what God was gonna do for us if we listened to him, and what he was gonna to do TOO us if we didn’t listen to him - and all the while, driving a big car, wearing a brand new suit every week, and wearing Florsheims that cost more a pair than my grandfather made all week trying to put food in our mouths. And even though my grandparents followed his words to the letter, every week, week after week, month after month, and year after year, they showed up at church just as poor as if they’d ignored him. And the irony is, they would have been doing much better if they HAD ignored him, because they were giving him every extra penny they could scrape up.
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it drove me absolutely crazy, because even as a kid it was clear to me that this man didn’t know any more about God than a drunk passed out in the alley behind the church - and he probably didn't have either as much character, or sense. Imagine how either clueless or deceitful a man has to be to go around claiming that God "called him" to speak for on his behalf. He's either a fool, or a hustler. His "calling" probably went something like this - "Man, I am so tired of having to get up and go to work every morning . . . wait a minute, is that you, Lord!!!?"  That's how most of them are "called."  So he wasn’t preaching the word of God. What he was preaching was bribery and threats, to keep the people coming, and to keep them paying him to scream at them every Sunday.
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Now, admittedly, I don’t know any more about God than a drunk passed out in an alley either (in fact, I've been known to pass-out a few times myself), but I do know about common sense, and it seems to me that if God did tell men what to say, he’d be more interested in telling us how we should treat "OTHERS," and why you should live a good life - not how to avoid Hell, or how to get into Heaven. God would probably say, "You should do what's right because it’s right to do right, and that is your reward." But what this man was spewing was religion based on selfishness, or "What am I gonna get out of it?" So that wasn’t the word of God. That was the word of the reverend, hustlin’ to keep that collection plate full.
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But I did recognize that the pastor was right in one regard - I would indeed be rewarded if I acted more like him, because he was there EVERY Sunday, without fail, begging his ass off. But that too perplexed me. I never understood why he needed to do that. Whenever we needed something, he'd tell us to go pray on it, but wherever HE needed something, he didn’t go to God, he came to us. Even when he wanted to take a vacation - or as he put it, "visit a sister church in Hawaii to spread the Gospel" - he’d pass the basket to us for his airfare and hotel accommodations - and what was our reward? "We had the satisfaction of going home just a little more poor than we were the week before, but, knowing we were "blessed" for helping the Reverend "spread the word of God" to every beach in Hawaii - and, of course, knowing that God would look kindly upon us . . . by and by.
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But even at 14 years old, I had a few questions about that. 1) Why did the Reverend have to go to Hawaii to "spread the Gospel," didn’t they have preachers in Hawaii? And 2). Why did he always have to come to us for financing? Why couldn’t he just ask God to inspire American Airlines to let him on the plane for free, and that the people at the Hawaii Hilton set him up in the Jesus suite? That’s what he told us to do when the rent was due, and I didn’t just keep these views to myself. I used to bring these issues up whenever I got the chance to speak with him, and he never came up with a reasonable answer. He’d simply tell me that the Devil had gotten into me somewhere, and I needed to pray for God to help me to see the light. But I did see the light, only too well. That, was the real problem.
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My grandfather used to joke about the fact that I was gonna get ‘em kicked out of the church. He was a highly religious man, but I think deep in his heart he was proud of the fact that I was willing to confront the man that everybody else in the church held in such high esteem. But I guess it’s just a flaw in my character, because to me, he was just another dude in a black rob spewin’ total nonsense, pimpin' in the name of the Lord.
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One day my grandfather told me, Rev. Hill came up to him and asked, "Mr. Wattree, where is that boy gettin’ all that stuff? I know he's not gettin' it from you and Mrs. Wattree." Actually, I can't even answer that question myself. I guess I was just born immune to voodoo. I've never understood how Black people could become so dedicated to a lie that was taught to them while they were tied up next to the mules. It was obvious that even the people who taught it to them didn't believe it; if they had, Black people wouldn't have been in the condition they were in.
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Later that Summer when I was MANDATED to attend Bible School, the reverend assigned the assistant pastor to council me, and according to my grandfather, "After a few sessions the assistant pastor disappeared and we ain’t seen him since." I just had to take grandfather's word on that, because the following Sunday the pastor preached a sermon telling all the pretty young sisters in the church that they needed to stop wearing naturals and all of those short, revealing miniskirts. That was the last straw for me. I left church after that sermon and, except to attend funerals, haven't set foot in one since.
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But if the reverend wasn’t anything else, he was tenacious. When I showed up at my uncle’s funeral as an adult, he preached the sermon looking directly at me. But he stepped over the line. He said, "This isn’t the last funeral we’re going to see in this family." The meaning was clear, and it wasn’t lost on anyone, but I wasn’t in any mood for that. My uncle was my mother’s youngest brother, so we were more like brothers than uncle and nephew. He had been shot and killed right after he'd dropped me off for my first day at the university, and I was devastated by it. So while everyone was absorbed in grief, I caught the good reverend after the funeral and demonstrated the assorted colors that I had added to my vocabulary since we'd last seen one another, and I never had a problem with him thereafter.
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I went into all of this for the specific purpose of relating one message for my Black readers to consider - if the reverend is right that God rewards people for following his word, he must view White folks as much better Christians than Black people, because he’s sure compensating them a whole better. That should be clear evidence to Black people that what they're being fed is pure unadulterated nonsense. So Black people need to get up off their knees, stop giving their money away to these preachers, and start hustling to move the community forward. Because as the old saying goes, "Free your mind, your ass will follow" - and not until then, regardless to who's in the White House. But don't just take my word for it:
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Matthew 6:1-34
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"Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues [churches] and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues [churches] and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."
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So if you're trying to "sanctify" your way into Heaven, forget it. God's got your number. In fact, he's probably gonna to want to know how you could possibly be so selfish about getting yourself into Heaven that instead of using your money to feed your kids, or dedicating your tithes to helping the poor, you thought you could buy admission into Heaven by making your preacher rich? That's not thinking about God, or the poor, that's thinking about you. So are you gonna follow the word of God, or continue to worship your preacher? If you truly believe in Heaven and hell, you need to consider that question along the verse above very closely - and here's another one for you:
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John 8:32 - The Truth will Set You Free.
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Bible School wasn’t completely lost on me.

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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/Http://wattree.blogspot.comEwattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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A Contemplation of Good, God, and Evil

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

A Contemplation of Good, God, and Evil

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I'm a freethinker on the subject of religion. I’m not a Bible thumper, I never attend church, and I don’t have much use for preachers. In fact, I just can’t see the logic in getting up early on Sunday morning and getting all dressed up just to go pay somebody to scream at me for two hours. I don’t see the logic in that, and I never did, even when I was forced to participate in the ritual as a kid. But I am a spiritual person, because logic, and the night sky, does inspire me to lean toward the belief that there is indeed a supreme force that governs the universe. After all, the universe didn’t just come from nothing. Some force had to caused the universe to spring into existence, and whatever that force was, I’ve chosen to call it God.
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Now, an atheist would undoubtedly tell me that I have no proof of the existence of God. The fact is, one told me that just today, and he was zealously insistent upon it. He dismissively suggested that by embracing the concept of God, it was tantamount to my embracing a belief in the "Flying Spaghetti Monster." That was clearly a dismissive assault on my intellect, but I recognized that for some reason, many atheists tend to take great pride in being arrogantly disdainful of the intellect of believers. So instead of vigorously objecting, I simply took note. I did point out, however, that his tone sound quite similar to that of a religious zealot, to which he responded, that religion required faith, and atheists have no use for faith. They deal in pure logic. So I thought I’d examine that contention.
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I pointed out to him that it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a believer, because believers do have the existence of the universe to point to as a basis of support for their belief, while all an atheist has is his belief, or "faith" that God doesn’t exist. Thus, faith in the non-existence of God is an integral part of what we have now established is his religion.
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I then went on to point out that in order to maintain the atheist position that God doesn’t exist, he bears the burden of having to prove that something (the universe) came from nothing - or that an effect was "initiated" without a cause - and, from out of nowhere. And since it is my contention that whatever force is responsible for the universe, order, and existence meets the definition God, how can an atheist know with any degree of certainty that nature, and/or the universe itself, isn’t God? After all, is it not true that the universe is responsible for the existence of all living things? That defines God.
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Thus, the debate, I went on, is no longer one of whether or not God exists, but rather, the NATURE of God’s existence. And that, in turn, leaves an atheists with only his "faith" and/or "religious" conviction to support his claim that God doesn’t exist. Therefore - contrary to what atheists would have us believe, and in spite of their renowned disdain for the silliness of religious dogma - atheism itself is nothing more than just another religion clothed in intellectual pretense, and their denial of the existence of God is merely another religious doctrine. That pretty much shut down the discussion.
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But that said, neither do I buy into the way God is portrayed by religious zealots of the opposite stripe. The mere thought that in a universe with over 800 billion galaxies - with each containing an average of 300 billion stars, and with each star separated by light years of space - that God would be fixated on the infestation of a mote in the ghetto of an insignificant galaxy is beyond belief. But then, most religious doctrine go even further than that. They suggest that God is so fixated on us that he's watching everything that each of us do, jumping through hoops, and performing magic tricks to get us to worship him (I'm using "him" to keep things simple). That takes us beyond delusional - it’s absolutely psychotic - the accompanying mood-setting music in the background notwithstanding.  It constitutes an absurd attempt by man to turn God into some kind of circus performer.
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The mere assumption that God is preoccupied with everything we do is merely a reflection of man's arrogance and exaggerated sense of self-importance, and the very idea of God being obsessed with trying to get man to worship him is patently ridiculous. That would be the direct equivalent of man spending every hour of every day trying to demand the respect of the germs under his toilet seat. That would be stupid, and while God may be many things, I doubt very seriously that stupid is among them. 
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Thus, since I view the foregoing perceptions of God as so grossly out of touch with reality, it should go without saying that I don't believe in Heaven or Hell. The entire concept just reeks of man’s tendency to threaten and/or bribe other men into subservience. And besides, if God was indeed watching and evaluating our behavior, he would have long since hit the delete button.
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So the fact is, we can only know God’s will by what he has done, and as I’ve said many times before, God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. He anticipated our needs when we were created, so he gave us the intellect to answer our own prayers, and the common sense to live the kind of life that would create our Heaven right here on Earth, if used properly; but if used improperly, we could also create our own Hell, which we have done. So we don’t require a Pat Robertson as God’s Special Envoy and Chief of Staff, nor do we need the Bible as a user’s guide to dictate how we should live our lives any more than fish need a swimming coach or birds need a compass to know which way is south, or a calendar to know when to head in that direction. Again, he blessed us with common sense to be our guide - at least, most of us.
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That leads me to the concept of good and evil. Actually, it’s quite simple. "Good" is to act with common sense, and what most people call "evil," is nothing more than ignorance. It’s as simple as that. Thus, the key to living a good life is to be an independent thinker, to use our intellectual capacity to explore what it actually means to live a fulfilling life, and to have the good sense to avoid the ignorant machinations of other men. I've boiled it down to one sentence - Never give anyone else's ability to think priority over your own.
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At this point I’m sure that many have come to the conclusion that I have a disdain for religion, but that’s not true - I have a disdain for the ignorant way in which it’s practiced. There’s nothing wrong with religion itself, if that’s what butters your bread. Some people find it comforting and inspirational to "fellowship" with others. But the problem is, man tends to completely ignore the primary point of religion - to inspire one to treat his fellow man with more caring, and to reinforce the idea of living a good and honorable life. He embraces dogma instead, those things that make his religion different from everyone else’s, and that’s not by accident.
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The bottom line is, while we pay it a lot of lip service, man doesn’t want to "love his neighbor." Due to his personal insecurity, and the resulting need to feel like he’s a part of a special breed that’s been anointed by God, he wants an excuse to hate, feel superior, and look down upon his neighbor, and religion gives him a "God-approved" pretext for doing just that. Man wants an excuse to say, "It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does." That’s why what we refer to as "The Bible Belt" also just happens to be the most bigoted and intolerant region in the entire country, and you’ll find the same to be true throughout the world - the more religious, the more bigoted, narrow-minded, and intolerant. Does that sound like the work of God? Personally, I don’t think so.
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So I look upon organized religion as a form of ignorance, and as I mentioned above, I equate ignorance with evil. You show me a man who believes in talking snakes, and I’ll show you a man who may be learned, but he’s not very bright, so he can be convinced of anything. So does organized religion have to be evil? No it doesn’t. But wherever you find hoards of insecure and unthinking people, you’re also going to find excess, hatred, subservience, and greed - or in short, evil.
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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.comEwattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.


　

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THE BLIND FAITH OF ORGANIZED RELIGION IS A SLAP IN THE FACE OF GOD

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

THE BLIND FAITH OF ORGANIZED RELIGION IS A SLAP IN THE FACE OF GOD

If God knows all, and he knows a billion years before Billy is born that Billy is going to end up in Hell, is there anything Billy can do in life to make God wrong?

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The above question is designed to point out two things - first, it points out that much of the religious doctrine that we’ve been taught is a myth that can’t stand up to logical examination. Secondly, I intend to argue that we can only know God’s will by what God has done - and what he has clearly done, was made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think, not to rely on a "user's guide" to inform our lives.

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Irrefutable evidence of that is the fact that when God placed man on Earth, he placed us here as necked apes. We weren’t as strong as the elephant, as ferocious as the lion, nor could we fly above danger like the eagle. So the cards were stacked against our ultimate survival - except for one thing. God provided man with a unique tool for survival - the human mind.
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Now, as a direct result of the effective use of that resource, we have built machines that can crush any elephant, slaughter the most ferocious lion, and fly far beyond the domain of the most dedicated eagle - in fact, we’ve now soared beyond the clouds, and on to explore other worlds.
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That's a powerful indicator of God’s will. It clearly demonstrates that God intended man to be a logical, thinking, being. On the other hand, God has done absolutely nothing to suggest that he intended to relegate mankind to being ignorant and superstitious victims, cowering in fear of the unknown, and obliged to be reliant upon "faith" in the words of "anointed" others to guide our existence. That’s not God’s will; that's man’s will. So the fact is, having more "faith" in what man tells us about God than we have in what God has actually done, is a slap in the face of God himself. Because the bottom line is, that's not faith in God; that's faith in man.
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THE INQUISITION WHEEL

That explains why we're living in a constant state of anger, hatred, and turmoil. We’re living against God’s will. Our attempt to survive on faith rather than the logic and intellect that is our God-given nature is as contrary to the natural scheme of things as a bird who refuses to fly, or a fish who refuses to swim - and the chances of our ultimate survival under the current circumstances are just as slim.
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So while I don't have a problem with the church, per se, I do have a severe problem with blind faith. Therefore, I asked the above question regarding Billy’s ultimate fate in order to demonstrate that, for the most part, religion is not only based on superstition rather than the sound logic and common sense upon which God blessed mankind, but it’s own dogma is self-contradictory. It is also my intent to argue that the only reason that many of us believe what we believe is because we choose to believe it, regardless to whether it makes sense or not - and since what we choose to believe is both toxic and intrinsically hostile to harmonious existence, it has led to man's plague of seemingly intractable problems.
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The primary problem is, instead of adhering to our nature - to be logical and independent thinkers - we insist on worshiping totem poles. And instead of being practical in addressing the issues that plague mankind, we remain fixated on meaningless dogma, superficialities, and rituals. In short, we’re being stupid, and stupidity has nothing to do with God. Our gross stupidity only serves to promote one purpose - the needs of greedy, evil, and power-hungry men.
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Do I believe in God? Yes I do, but that doesn’t mean that I believe in Voodoo, talking snakes, and walking dead men. For me, God is whatever force that is responsible for the existence of the universe - or to be more precise, existence itself. So I can see my God, since, from my point of view, God, Nature, and the Universe are synonymous.
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Thus, God is not a speculative concept for me. If "I think, therefore, I am;" I am, therefore, God is. For there cannot be creation without a creative force, and whatever that force is, as far as I'm concerned, it constitutes God. Thus, the question is not whether or not God exists, but rather, what is the nature of God's existence?
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So by giving my own God-given ability to think priority over faith, with respect to my personal beliefs, that frees me from having to be reliant upon the words, and fees, of so-called "anointed" men. It also gives me a leg up on atheists, because while atheists take the position that those of us who believe in God have no evidence to show that God exists, my position is, the existence of the universe gives me concrete evidence of God's existence, while they're left with mere opinion, and even that - the proposition that something came from nothing - strains conventional logic.
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The biggest problem that I have with organized religion, however, has nothing to do with the existence of God. My problem with religion begins and ends with the blatant manipulation of mankind in the name of God. The greed, self-service, and shameless hypocrisy of man have turned what should be a spiritual experience into something that’s ugly, divisive, and malevolent - and all of that starts with the concept of blind "faith."
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Man has a vested interest in controlling other men, so he uses the concept of faith to coerce the masses into accepting man himself as the spokesman for God. He does that by laying out written tablets, then convincing the masses that these tablets represent the "word of God." He then goes on to convince them that God has appointed him to ensure that "God’s word" is followed to the letter, and any deviation from the word of God, or even a second’s doubt that the book - in this case, the Bible - indeed, represents the word of God, is an act heresy, which will result in the most hideous punishment known to man - and, it will endure throughout eternity. Once demagogues got the masses to accept that, they literally took control of your minds. So for all intent and purpose, they became your God.
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It is precisely because of this ploy that we often hear people using the Bible as a metaphor for God. They don’t ask, "Do you believe in God?" They ask, "Do you believe in the Bible?" Their question implies that it goes without saying that the Bible is the word of God. That’s what allows the social manipulators to come in with the Bible under their arm and set themselves up as the spokesmen for God. That’s also why so many preachers are driving around in big cars - because the people think that by making the preacher rich, they’re gaining favor with the Supreme Being. It’s the biggest scam on the face of the Earth.
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What a great racket, this organized religion game - and the people never stop to think for a minute that the "faith" that they embrace so intently, is not a faith in God at all. Their putting their faith in man, and what corrupt men are telling them about God. And since the people have been taught, literally from birth, that questioning what they’re being told by these "God-anointed" men is an assault on God himself, these charlatans, and their scam, are completely insulated from the ravages of a sudden plague of common sense.
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So, carefully consider the question that I posed above, for it pits the common sense that God gave us against the contrived nonsense that man would have us believe. It both, points out a major flaw in the dogma that’s being forced down the people’s throats, and it clearly demonstrates that many of us can no more substantiate the validity of what we choose to believe than a child can substantiate the existence of Santa Claus.
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Our belief system has absolutely nothing to do with either morality, or, our love of God. We believe what we believe for one of two reasons - since organized religion never fails to support the status quo, if you’re a part of the ruling class, it rigs the system in your behalf, and if you’re of the subordinate class, you’re afraid not to believe it, so it doesn’t matter whether it’s factually valid or not.
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In addition, one of the first things we learn as we’re being indoctrinated as children is how to avoid the reality of common sense. In order to insulate religion from our common sense seeping through to suggest that snakes can’t talk, and that dead men don’t just get up and walk away, we’ve been taught that any flash of insight isn’t common sense at all. It's evil. It’s actually the Bogeyman whispering in our ear, trying to steal us away from God. Thus, we've literally been threatened not to acknowledge the common sense that God bestowed upon us.
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So instead of giving truth priority over ideology, we learn early in life to distort truth in order to make it conform to what we want to believe. That, in turn, is what makes it much easier to indulge in hatred, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and endless wars. Thus, instead of being a part of the solution, organized religion is invariably one of man's biggest problems.
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It’s no accident that the Klan originated in the Bible Belt and the most religious parts of the world are also the most brutally intolerant. Religion is THE most morally efficient form of segregation. It allows one to validate one's self as part of a special order of human being - or, one of  God's "chosen people" - while invalidating others as flawed. Thus, every since it's inception, religion has served as a God-approved justification for hating our fellow man - or at the very least, looking down upon them. It allows us to say, "it’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me - it’s just that God does." 

The Conversion
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"Come here nigga and let me teach yo crazy, animal ass about the Lord. The first thing you got to learn is to Love thy Neighbor . . . especially me."
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"Yes sir, Massa. Why would anybody not love you, Sir? You so good to me, Massa. Anybody don't love you needs to have dey ass beat real good, Massa."
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"Shut up, nigga. I'm talkin'."
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"Listen, you been blessed already, and you don't even know the Lord. The Lord made it where you don't have to worry 'bout a thing. I feed you, I put clothes on yo nasty ass, and I give you a shed to sleep in, and all you have to do is whatever the hell I tell you to. Do you know how blessed you are?"
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"Oh, indeed I do, Massa. You take good care of me. I's so happy."
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"Now, listen real good 'cause dis impotant. God said, thou shalt not steal from me, thou shalt not kill (unless I tell you to), thou shalt not stick another coon's wife (unless we tryin' to make some mo niggas), and nigga, whatever you do, thou shalt not even look like you want to stick a white woman, or we gon lynch yo black ass. You here me, nigga?"
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"Oh yes, Massa. We know dat! But Massa, I thought you said thou shalt not kill?"
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"Dat means people, fool - real people! Dat don't go for niggas. God wants us to keep you in yo place.".
"Dat's right, Massa. We sho gotta keep niggas in dey place. No tellin' what a happen if we let dese niggas git loose. God so smart."
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"I said shut up, nigga, and listen to the word."
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"The next thing you got to learn is, whatever happens on this plantation is God's will bein' done. And if you listen to me, you'll get to live like I do when you die and go to Heaven."
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"Live like you, massa? A nigga ain't got no business livin' dat good. What a Po nigga like me gon do with all this? You know I ain't got sense enough to run nothin' like this."
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"Just shut up, nigga!" When you dead you gon get some sense - the lord gon give it to you. The Lord can do anything, even give sense to a nigga. And he gon give you all the other niggas you gon need to help you in the fields, too."
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"Massa, you so good to me! Thank you for tellin' me all dis. I'm gon be a good nigga - the best nigga you ever seened. Look, I'm gon pray for you right now, and thank the Lord for givin' me so good a massa."
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"Shut up and get up off your knees, ya dumb nigga! The fields need tendin'! You pray to the Lord on your own time. God don't won't you talkin' to him when you s'pose to be workin'."
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"A couse, Massa. What I been thinkin'? I's so dumb. I don't know why you put up with me, Sir."
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"How many times I got to tell you to shut the hell up, nigga?"
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"Yes Sir, I's a shuttin', Massa. I's a shuttin', right now."
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"Now get yo ass out there in that field and let's get some work done around here . . . Oh, and Toby, have yo woman meet me in the barn. I need to tell her 'bout the Lord too."
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"Yes sir, Massa."
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"And another thing, Toby, if my momma come a lookin', tell her I'm playin' in my tree house."
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"Why you gon go fibbin' to yo momma, Mr. Tommy? She knows you like to sit wit Lou Ann."
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"Just shut up, nigga, and do what I said! And tell Lou Ann to wear that pretty dress I like, cause we gon be talkin' 'bout the Lord, so it's gon be like chuch."
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"Yes Sir, Mr. Tommy." . . . "Whaaaaaaat a friend we have in Jeeeeesus . . ."
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Thus, many of man’s most severe problems will continue to be intractable until we learn to use our intellect - that quality that makes us most human - instead of caving in to our emotions - which coincide with our most primordial and animalistic nature. Unfortunately, too few of us are prepared to recognize that fact. Instead, we insist on whining about how poor we are, even as we continue to buy preachers big cars and lavish homes.
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Well, here’s a message from God (common sense) to the Black community, and America as a whole - You will never be free, as long as you continue to allow your minds to be enslaved.
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Amen.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Set You Free

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

"IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"

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Every since I wrote the column "Crabs in a Barrel," the gross hypocrisy of South Carolina State Senator, Rev. Darrell Jackson, has lingered with me. In that column I describe how the Black, South Carolina State Senator, who was also the pastor of the 10,000 member, "Family Way Bible Life Center Church," came out against Senator Barack Obama afer selling his support to Senator Hillary Clinton for $10,000 a month--a dollar amount that corresponded exactly with the number of members he had in his church.
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Now, as I drive through the Black community and see the magnificent "houses of God" towering over the community in the midst of poverty, social need, and in some cases, squalor all around them, I can't help but wonder how many of them are really doing God's work.
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When I look at those resplendent edifices, it takes me back to a little storefront church on a 108th and Juniper in Watts, where my grandmother first sent me for religious instruction--she was ill at the time, so she couldn't take me to "the big church" in which she was a member.
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I'll never forget that little storefront church. It stood down the street and in the shadow of a huge and elaborately appointed Catholic church, seemingly, almost as an afterthought. It was so small and had so few members that the thought of attracting a true "ordained man of God" was out of the question, so we had to settle for a little, unassuming man that we used to refer to as Elder Hampton. That little church was the closest thing to worshiping in someone's living room as you could get, but to this day, whenever I begin to lose faith in the basic goodness of my fellow man, or even remotely begin to contemplate God, I think of that little storefront church.
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If I'd remained at that church, I don't know what I would have been doing today. My young instincts led me to become so close to Elder Hampton that I might have even become a preacher. He used to take me with him to visit the old, the poor, and the sickly in the neighbor. Black, Mexican, young, old, Baptist or Catholic, he didn't care what a person was—if they were sick or in need, they were all a part of his flock.
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Looking back on it, I don't know where he found the resources. He certainly didn't get it from our little collection plate—we were so poor and so few in number he couldn't have gotten more than ten dollars a Sunday out of us, max. But in spite of that, he was no Sunday preacher. He was a full-time man of God--if you were sick or in need, you could count on him seven days a week. But after my grandmother had an operation and finally got over her illness, they took me to the "big church," and I never saw Elder Hampton again, but his influence has remained constant in my life to this day—in fact, though I must admit that I'm rarely found in church these days, it is his lingering influence that's led me to write this article, and everything else that I write.
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The first time I went to the big church I was completely overwhelmed with the opulence of it all. Shortly before I arrived, the church had just imported in a new fireball of an ordained minister, direct from Dallas, Texas. He was nothing like the quiet and humble Elder Hampton. He had a big booming voice, wore shinny Florsheims, expensive suits, and a sense of importance just oozed from every pore of his body. When this man walked into a room it sucked all the oxygen out of the place--you just knew you were in the presence of someone significant.
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And God must have loved this magnificent church the minister headed--the choir alone in this ornate house of God was larger by a factor of three than the entire membership of the little church I'd grown accustomed to, and the choir pit was twice as large as the room where we held Sunday school. The parking lot of the church was filled with big, expensive cars, and a limousine was often parked next to the front entrance. In addition, City Councilmen and other politicians were counted among its membership, and a well known entertainer was the church organist. In a church like this you didn't have to wait to get to heaven--every Sunday you were right there. The only problem was, after services you had to return to reality, which was more often than not, a life of pure hell.
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I've often wondered what Elder Hampton would have done with all of those resources. But I couldn't imagine Elder Hampton heading a magnificent place like this. Since he wasn't ordained, he never would have even been considered to head a place like this in the first place. I don't care how Godly you were, stature took precedence there–if Moses wanted to head the church, they'd want to inspect his credentials. But even if Elder Hampton would have been ordained, he was much too humble a man to be embraced by the high-powered people in this membership. With his quiet, unassuming demeanor, even as a member, he would have been a back-bencher—politely tolerated, but scarcely noticed.
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And further, Elder Hampton wouldn't begin to know how to manage the resources of a huge church like that. While he was definitely a man of God, he wasn't a practical man. He probably would have squander all the church's resources on the no-account sinners in the surrounding community.
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He was just too impractical. He probably would have setup a soup kitchen and built a dormitory to house the homeless at night, and hired unemployed mothers to start a low-cost daycare center on the church grounds during the day. Then it wouldn't be no time at all before he'd dig up the church's beautiful grounds, trying to put up basketball courts and a recreation building to draw young people off the streets after school. And of course, between the kids during the day, the teenagers in the early evening, and the homeless at night, it would cost the church a fortune just to keep up the grounds and repair damages to the building.
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Much of the congregation would have been in an uproar over the chaos he'd create. And it would go far beyond simply chaos. He would have long since lost most of the influential politicians. Every Sunday he'd be hounding them at church, and calling them at home during the week, trying to get them to create Empowerment Zones, and Special Need Zones to establish low-cost loans to help the surrounding neighbors to purchase and fix-up the houses they were living in. It's no wonder he'd drive the politicians out of the church. How could he expect these busy men to worship God in peace with him buzzing around like a gadfly trying to get them to help the poor?
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No, Elder Hampton's heart was in the right place, but he'd have been much too impractical to run a big church like that. He was a God loving man, but he lacked common sense. He thought when God said Love thy neighbor, he meant it. What a fool.
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Yeah, Elder Hampton would have been a back-bencher at that church. He would have been the fool sitting way in the back--with Jesus.

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“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."

Matthew 6:1-34

Elder Hampton, God knew of the good works that you did in secret . . . And unbeknownst to you, he sent a child to record your deeds. 

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DEDICATED TO ELDER HAMPTON - A MAN OF GOD

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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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