Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
 

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 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 every extra penny to him.
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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 saying that God "called him" to speak for him. He's either a fool, or a hustler - "Man, I'm 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 you coming, and paying him to scream at you 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. It seems to me that God would say, "You should do what's right because it’s right to do right. 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, to help him "spread the word of God."
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But even at 14 years old, I had a few questions about that. 1). Why did he 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 pray for God to inspire America Airlines to let him on the plane for free, and that the people at the Hawaii Hilton to 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 see the light. But I did saw the light, only too well.
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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 debate the man that everybody else in the church held in such high esteem. I guess it’s just a flaw in my character, because to me, he was just another dude in a black rob spewin’ a lot of nonsense. One day my grandfather told me, Rev. Hill came up to him and asked, "Mr. Wattree, where is that boy gettin’ that stuff? I know he's not gettin' it from you and Mrs. Wattree." Actually, I can't 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; it 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 his 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, ain’t set foot in one since.
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But 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 brother’s, and he had been shot and killed. So 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 to my Black readers - if God rewards people for following the gospel as related in the Bible, he must think White people are much better Christians than we are, because he’s certainly compensating them better. That should be clear evidence that what you're being fed is pure nonsense. So Black people need to get up off their knees, stop giving their money away to these preachers, and start hustling to move forward, because once you free your mind, your ass will follow - but not until then.
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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 this preacher rich? That's not thinking about God, or the poor, that's thinking about you.
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I guess Bible School wasn’t completely lost on me.
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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/Http://wattree.blogspot.com[email protected]
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)