Hello World, 
I’m always on the hunt for the next new and interesting book! And y’all, by the title alone, this book is sure to get some buzz….Based on her inflammatory blog post The Black Church: How Black Churches Keep African American Women Single and Lonely (which had the blogosphere blowing up) dating expert Deborrah Cooper has penned a new book “The Black Church: Where Women Pray and Men Prey.”
In her original blog post, Cooper asserted that good black men were not likely to be in church, and in fact, if you did happen upon a black man in church, he would fit into one of these categories:
- A loser working a 12-step program. These guys are in church looking for structure and something to believe in besides themselves, because they are weak and confused. They need help getting their lives back on track and are seeking solace and comfort in church. If they can hook up with a woman looking desperately for a church-going man of any ilk, they’ve got it made.
- Openly or in the closet gay men, neither of which is interested in marrying. Some gay men are wrestling with severe guilt and confusion about their desires, which they hope to pray away. Others are openly gay and attend church seeking acceptance from a community which turns its nose up at homosexuality; they are also seeking forgiveness for their sins. Whatever may be this guy’s issue, he is emotionally and psychologically unavailable.
- Opportunistic players on the prowl. Every player I know goes to a couple of different churches… some of them go quite regularly. They have easy pickings amongst the hundreds of horny, lonely single women that will cook and give them free meals and satisfy his sexual urges (though these players have no intention of marrying and committing to anyone). Since sex amongst unmarried singles is a sin, it is easy for him to gain the assurance of the women that they keep things secret and not speak of their “transgression” lest they feel the wrath of the Pastor. This secrecy makes it easy for him to hide the fact that he is bed hopping with four or five single ladies, right under their respective noses.
- Elderly reformed players. These guys have played themselves so hard and so long, they’re worn out. Their old butts finally realized that the end may be near and playtime is over. Worried about dying alone, they bring their behinds back to church to find a “good Christian woman” for marriage. Essentially they are looking for a free nursemaid and bed warmer… someone to provide comfort and take care of their old broken down a$$@s before they die.
I felt some kind of way about her blog post and wrote about it here so I’m not sure what to make of her new book. But I’ve got to admit, Ms. Cooper knows how to get a reaction! That’s for sure! Below are a few of the points Cooper says she will address in her new book:
- Why the majority of black women in church will hear nothing but false promises made by false prophets
- The real reason there are few single black males of marriageable quality in black churches
- How to take charge of your financial future and spirituality without ever setting foot in a church again
- How biblical scriptures are cleverly twisted to manipulate your thoughts and behaviors with guilt and shame
The book will debut this month, according to her website Surviving Dating. Will you read it?
Any thoughts?
Very interesting topic. Gonna have to read her full blog. I definitely know several men that fall into one of those 5 categories. Unfortunately I don’t know many that don’t fit into one.
Yes, definitely an interesting topic, but I don’t agree with her assessment, but as I said, she definitely knows how to generate interest… 🙂
Wow!!!! Okay. I don’t agree with her assessment (ALL fall in to one category) nor do I agree with the conclusions listed (how to ….. so that you never have to step foot in a church again). What I do believe is that church folk are the same pp we see and work with each day ~ why do we keep expecting something diffirent? And while there may be lots of pimps and players in the pulpit and skanks and skeezers in the pues I’d take a God-fearing, church going man any day!!!!
Me to Sabrina! Some people inside of the church are living foul for sure, but that’s no different from outside of the church…I guess the problem for some people is that they expect people in the church to be different….and they are in the sense that they at least know they have these issues, for the most part anyway (lol), and are working on them…which should be done in and out of the church….
I have always been told that the church is likw the hospital. If you are perfect, its not the place for you. This is not to excuse what I consider to be an abuse of power by some in the church, but simply to say we are all a work in progress. Thank God I have a place to go to aid the heal.
Just from the excerpts alone of Ms. Cooper’s book, I must say that I do agree with her. I have belonged to several churches and nothing in the past 20 years–in which I’ve attended multiple churches–has changed. In fact to quote a familiar saying: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
With all due respect Jackieholness and Sabrina, I beg to differ–the ‘saved believers’ in the churches are most definitely expected to be different–they are to be known by their ‘fruit’ which is the fruit of the Spirit. They are to be easily recognized not by being self-righteous with spiritual arrogance, but by a humble, unassuming demeanor. People who are truly and sincerely spiritual (which is quite different from being religious) are not to act as the world prompts or conditions them to act. Quote from the apostle Paul: “we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.” Jesus Christ said himself: “we are to be in the world not of the world.” We are also called by Christ to “come out from among them.” “Them” being the people of the world which not only consists of pimps, drug dealers, serial killers, financial embezzlers, greedy CEOs, assassins, workplace/schoolyard bullies etc.; but also your “everyday average hard-working person” who pays their taxes and even attends church and PTA meetings on a regular basis…many of them are content with an idle, selfish mind, junkies of the pop culture fervor, indulging in narcissism and/or immersing themselves in materialism–just to name a few forms of idolatry.
Ms. Cooper has penned what I’ve been saying for a long time. I would have written it differently only because we’re two different individuals and everyone has their own unique style, but nevertheless, she wrote the TRUTH. I thank God for her courage to go against the status quo and make it public.
I plan to read this book but from the brief analysis of the book that you have presented it seems like the writer has a flawed opinion of the institution of the Church and the men and women that exist in it. Obviously, she is protraying a particular donimation which is focused on certain economic, social and community issues.
You point to a 12 step program for drug/sex/alchol issue by the way those are found in church that are concerned about the social gospel. It would be good to make destinctions regarding what you find in liberal and conservative christian churches.
Then you focus on the openly gay men, but you do not mention about the under cover lesbian women in the same congregations. And you did not mention about how those openly gay men came to become aware of there female side. If mothers are where boys and girls learn about who they are why does not this therapist look at how often being a single mother plays into the psyche of how a boy may over identify with being a girl?
Now we got the player on the prowl. Don’t the women in the Chruch read the bible, and don’t the read that any immorality from a Christian is seen in the Bible as sin. Excuse me you do not have to go to College or Univerity to get a Master’s or write a book to read the Bible where moral conduct for both men and women has already been told? Or are people so rebellious that they refuse to read or live by the word of God, or is that to obvious DAAAA?
Miss, Cooper has so issues, just like people, other women who are not going to church to find faith, but are looking to find prosperity, and social status. Church is not a place to to go if your are looking to be a part of this word, Christ came to give you eternal life. If you are looking to find life you will not find it in the church, you are coming to the church to loose your life so that you can no longer be bound by greed, sex, the cares of this world, lies, lust, ambition. You seek to become no longer I but the Christ who lives in me. I find to many women want to live just like they are in the street, and have no knowledge of the world. The comments that I have read many of you write, you have not read your Bibles in a long time or you do not care what the Bible says, or you do not belive that the Bible it true. Get you a young man your age, he give you plenty of babies and runs on you. Never once did you pray was this the will of God for me to marry this man. You people complain you charish you big butts but you do not have any money, you desire men that do not desire you. You get advise from a woman that does not seem to me to be spiritually oriented, and do not let me say that none of you on this page talks like that are familiar with the HOLY GHOST or comes out of a Church that teaches that it is holiness or hell, which is Bible truth. The only reason I would read this book is because I have meet too many women who say that they are “Chrisian” but lie and are decievers just like the people that do not say that they believe. And this leads me to believe that they are only using the term Christian to mean I worship as a civil religion, but I do not believe in the actual Son of God who rose on Calvary.