I used to routinely challenge Rev. Hill. I didn’t want to seem impudent or like a rebel rouser (after all, I was a child), but there was something inside of me that just YEARNED to let him know that I had his number - and I did. I was only 14, but by that time I had already been highly political for 4 years. I’d become fixated on politics by watching the campaign between JFK and Nixon when I was 10 years old. So for me, it was just another political debate. But in order not to be disrespectful, I’d use the Socratic method of challenging his assertions with questions that he’d have to dig to try to answer. No, at the time, I didn't even know there was such a thing as the "Socratic Method," but being a respectful, though opinionated kid, the use of questions seemed to be a more appropriate way of respectfully challenging an  adult than direct confrontation. While I wanted to be heard, I didn't want to make myself look like a disrespectful brat. That not only would have reflected badly on my family, but my point would have been lost in the resulting furor, and I certainly didn't want that.

Rev. E.V. Hill and Verlee Wattree (Mom)

But I wasn't fooling the reverend for a minute.  He knew exactly what was going on. On more than one Sunday morning I would recognize that his sermons were forged directly from a discussion that we'd had the previous Sunday.  And while he was preaching, and as his powerful voice would bellow into the churches sound system, he'd look directly into my eyes, but I wouldn't blink. Because even as he preached, I was fashioning questions in my mind to confront him with during our next encounter, and on one such occasion I got the good reverend to the side and asked him the following:
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Does God know all? And he said, "Of course he does." I then asked him, can God be wrong? And he told me, "No he can’t." I then reminded him that in his last sermon he said that all a person had to do to get into Heaven was to repent his sins and be Baptized. And he said, "That’s right." Then I dropped the bomb. I asked him, well, if God knows all, and he knows a billion years before Billy is even born that Billy is going to be born, live his life, and then end up in Hell, is there ANYTHING that Billy can do in life to make God wrong - and that includes, repenting and being Baptized?
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After considering the question for a moment he ran to the preacher’s refuge.  He said,  "There are some things that are so complex that it is only for God to know." I saw that as a cop-out, and I'm sure he knew it, because he later approached my grandfather and asked him, "Where is he getting this stuff?" If he would have asked me, I would have answered him very simply - "From God." Because God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think, not to blindly follow the delusional contrivances of other men.
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And what I was thinking was not unique. I believe a lot of people have thought the exact same thoughts that I had, but they were afraid to voice them because they'd been threatened with going to Hell if they didn't have absolute faith in everything they were told. But I didn't sweat that, because common sense dictated to me that a loving father would never allow one of his children to agonize throughout eternity in "the burning pits of Hell" for simply refusing to blindly accept the assertions of another man. That, by definition, wouldn't be a loving God.  And besides that, it was God himself who made us critical thinkers in the first place, wasn’t it?  So, why would he create us to be critical thinkers if critical thinking was a damnable offense? 
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The confused logic in that smacked of man to me, even through the unpracticed eyes of a child. While many Christians would say, "Well, Jesus said . . . "  My response to that is, we have to take man's word on that as well, don't we?" So as I saw it, we had a choice - we could either trust in what man SAYS, or what God has DONE.  Personally, I've placed my money on what God has done, because if we choose to follow the "Gospel" of man over the mind that God specifically designed and bestowed upon us, we've decided to worship man over God - period.
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I also confronted (or questioned) the good reverend about his practice of publishing the names of everybody who tithed, and what they paid, in the church bulletin every month. I considered it extortion. It placed pressure on the members to not only tithe, but pay two and three times what they were "supposed" to pay so the rest of the church couldn’t calculate how little money they made.
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So no, I didn’t have any problem with confronting the good reverend at all, because I’ve never been impressed by stature. In fact, it’s the people "of stature" that I seek out to challenge, because I learned very early in life that they tend to be the biggest gasbags. In addition, I’d been exposed to Elder Hampton, a REAL man of God. 
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When my grandmother was ill, she used to send me to a little storefront church until she was back on her feet and could take me to join "THE BIG CHURCH." That entire little church wasn’t even as large as Mt. Zion’s choir section. It was presided over by a little un-ordained minister that we used to call Elder Hampton. But that little man had an impact on my life that has remained with me to this day, because he was humble, and he didn’t just preach his sermons - he lived them. If Jesus came back to Earth, I would expect him to come back in the guise of someone like Elder Hampton. No big cars, no social climbing, no expensive suits or pushing meaningless rituals for this little man. He had only one mission - living the SPIRIT of the Gospel. He knew the words of the Gospel, but what set him apart is he got past the text to the love and substance that lied BENEATH the words.
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Simply observing this man helped me to forge my sense of morality. As a result, my moral sensibilities don't involve a lot of words and meaningless rituals. So I 've never felt the need to get up on Sunday morning and get all dressed up to go pay somebody to scream at me for two hours; nor do I feel the need to buy some preacher a mansion in the suburbs. Because, it's always been clear to me that it doesn’t matter how rich you make your preacher, God is not impressed by such nonsense. In fact, he’s probably insulted by the fact that you’re trying to play him like a fool. What makes a person think that God would be pleased by them buying a rich gasbag a big house while there are people right next door to the church who are starving? For that reason, I've always thought the most interesting position in all the universe has to be assistant to St. Peter at the entrance of the Pearly Gate. Can you imagine some of the discussions that must be taking place there!!!?  They've got to be fascinating - especially when members of the GOP arrive seeking the "Corporate Entrance," or when Jerry Falwell pulled up in his Rolls to confront Jesus sitting on his throne dressed in rags.
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But I'm just indulging in a flight of fancy here. I don't even believe that Heaven and Hell are actual places. I think they are a condition. While I have no way of actually knowing this for sure, it seems to me that it is quite likely that life itself is Hell, and we continue to suffer through the cycle of birth, life, and the agony of death until we’ve been around enough times to obtain the wisdom to become one with God - that's why some people are so much more enlightened than others; they've been around more times. And what we define as "evil," is actually just ignorance.
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So, chances are, the only reason we’re here in the first place, instead of luxuriating in the embrace of God, is because we’re the people who were greedy, selfish, and the ones who thought we were slick enough to fool God the last time around. But of course, that's only speculation on my part.  God hasn’t given me any inside information like others claim, so I have no way of knowing whether or not what I believe is true. But if I’m going to believe in a myth, I’d much rather believe in my own than one that’s been prefabricated for me.
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But I do believe in my little scenario with quite a bit of passion, because I have carefully watched how God works by observing the patterns and what seems to be a motif within the universe. In my opinion, that’s the only way that one can understand God and know his will, by observing what he has DONE, and from what I've notice, everything in the universe seems to be based on cycles.
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Electrons orbit in cycles around the nucleus of the smallest atom, just as the planets orbit around the Sun, and the Sun orbits around the center of the galaxy, and our galaxy hurls through space in search of the center of the universe. So the universe itself is based on cycles. Likewise, we are born helpless, toothless, and lack meaningful mobility when we are babies, and we return to that state when we grow old. That reflects yet another cycle. Then every morning dawn bursts forth to create another day, only to play itself out and complete it’s cycle and pass away into darkness at the end of the day. The same is true of the seasons. Every year I watch in amazement how my seemingly lifeless peach tree begins to take on life in the spring, bear fruit, and then return to what SEEMS like a lifeless slumber at the end of the season. So when I observe this pattern of cycles throughout nature, and the universe, somehow the frivolous myths of man seems counterintuitive.
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I also find man's "Christian" convention of further enriching the rich counterintuitive.  So instead of using the church as an intermediary, I pay my tithes directly to the homeless. That way I'm sure they get it, and I don’t have to wait until I die to be rewarded. When I give money to the homeless I can instantly see God’s smile reflected in their eyes. Try it some time. The next time a homeless person asks you for some change, give them 10 or $20 and then look into their eyes. I guarantee you, the look in their eyes will make it the best $20 you’ll ever spend, and the feeling will stay with you all week. It’ll make you want to go broke doing it. If I were rich, I’d spend much of my life walking around making homeless people smile.
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And I don’t care how they spend the money I give them. It’s not my place to tell them what they need, or how they should live their lives.  All I’m interested in is giving them a little relief, and bringing a moment of happiness into their lives. In fact, sometimes when I go on my morning stroll, I’ll go by the liquor store and get us ALL a little hit. Then I'll stop by their little encampment and spend an hour or so getting a buzz on with ‘em.  We all need that release from time to time.
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These people don't want do-gooders coming around trying to use them to get into Heaven. The fact is, having to put up with such people - good intentions notwithstanding - is one of the heavy burdens that their way of life forces them to have to bear. What they need, and what they want, is someone to sit down and share their lives with - someone who's not looking upon them as pitiful aberrations of humanity.
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I’ve been doing this for years, so now when I get up and go on my little stroll in the morning, the neighbors - and the police - know what I’m up to. The police used to try to dissuade me by putting a little pressure on me - they even gave me a ticket once. But once the higher-ups found that I was just the eccentric dad of a fellow law enforcement officer, they kicked the ticket out. Now the police just sort of turn their head and give me a pass. They simply told me not to buy them enough liquor to get them drunk (which I would never do anyway), and to make sure that they're discrete and don’t brandish open containers of alcohol in public, which I do, and this little ritual has become a treasured part of my routine.

I’m sure there are many people who would say what I’m doing is not right, but I beg to differ. All these people want is a moment of joy every now and then, and to be able to indulge in some of the simple pleasures that my critics routinely enjoy in the privacy of their homes. And again, it is not my place to try to save these people from themselves. They are adults - and most are very intelligent adults who, for various reasons, have hit bumps in the road. So I’m simply treating them the way that I would want to be treated - isn't that a Christian tenet?
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The problem is, far too many "Christians" are much more interested in Christian doctrine than they are Christian love. They spend far too much time trying to push their ideology down people's throats, and far too little time simply trying to make the world a better place for their fellow human beings. They’ve turned Christianity into a political philosophy, and they've forgotten the very essence of what the spirit of Christianity is SUPPOSED to be all about.  This is why they're losing young people by the droves. Young people are not as comfortable with hypocrisy as many of the older people have become over the years.

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 after 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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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,
 

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.

Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
[email protected]
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.