Posted on Thursday, September 10, 2015

Was It Wrong for ‘Sunday Best’ Winner Le’Andria Johnson to be Drunk Allegedly on Periscope?

Hello World,

I was scheduled to write a recap of Season 1 Episode 7 of “Born Again Virgin” but after checking my Google Analytics this morning and seeing that my blog post on Le’Andria Johnson got some major hits yesterday, I decided to do a quick Google search on Season 3 “Sunday Best” winner and GRAMMY Award winner Le’Andria Johnson and why she was blowing up yesterday. And this is the result I got – “leandria johnson drunk on periscope.” Well, so I went to a link and this is what has caused the hubbub, according to to the September 8 blog post “Gospel Singer LeAndria Johnson Appears Drunk And A Lil Off On Periscope” on yallknowwhat.com.

No one loves Periscope as much as we do. The newest social media craze has gotten everyone broadcasting 24 hours a day. This is a dream come true for fans of celebrities. On the other hand, it allows the public to see different artists in their element and their comfort zone.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a good thing for some celebs. It proved to be a disaster for gospel singer Le’Andria Johnson last night. Thousands of viewers witnessed the Season 3 Sunday Best winner ranting for 10 minutes about different things. She admitted to drinking Patron during her Periscope video, she cursed a few times, and she was blasting secular music (Drunk In Love) in the background.

The video of Le’Andria Johnson on Periscope has seen been removed but the damage has been done. Whoa!!! I have lots of thoughts about this. First thought, Le’Andria Johnson has never claimed to be a saint. She is a Christian saint but not a saint by the most widely accepted definition. In my interview with her, the preacher’s daughter admitted she has been divorced twice and was pregnant as a single mother while recording her third album under “Le’Andria Johnson, The Experience.” And she even started Imperfect People Changing Ministries during that time period. As a preacher’s daughter myself and an imperfect one at that, I have real empathy for her and her story. While I’m not a two-time divorcée or have given birth to children out of wedlock, I’ve indulged in my fair share of sin. And there is a lot of pressure to be perfect as a pastor’s daughter that other Christians don’t understand. And Le’Andria Johnson spoke about that in my interview of her.

As a pastor’s daughter, did you ever resent the requirements of ministry on you parents?

Heck yeah! Yes, I did, because I was taught God, God, God, God, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There ain’t anything wrong with that but I never understood life because we were always in some Bible meeting. We were always in some revival. We were always in some shut in…Being in church all of my life crippled me. That’s how the whole issue with men that I was dealing with came to be…I couldn’t wait to put on a pair of booty shorts. I couldn’t wait to put on a pair of hoop earrings, red lipstick, eyelashes…I couldn’t wait to get tattoos… I couldn’t wait to smoke, couldn’t wait to drink, couldn’t wait to have sex…But by me doing those things, I had to go through my own personal issues and in that I found God to be who they didn’t teach me He was. I was taught that God is a ‘reprimander’ and that He was jealous. I was taught that God was going to punish you for this. It was negative…But I found out He was the sweetest. He is the sweetest man I’ve ever known…I had to find all of that stuff out after I did the sin…

All that being said, if Le’Andria Johnson was allegedly drunk on Periscope, blasting “Drunk in Love” in the background while cursing, is that wrong? Well, first of all, it’s funny to death…C’mon man, you know it is…Secondly, it was bad judgment. I don’t think anyone wants to see their favorite gospel singer turnt in real time with Beyoncé in the background…But here’s the thing…What if she likes to drink Patron, listen to Beyoncé and curse in the privacy of her own home but did not broadcast it for the masses to see? Would that make her any less of a sinner – according to some people’s assessment? Would it disqualify her to be a gospel singer and minister? Before I answer these questions, there are two verses that should be referenced here…

Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly. James 3:1

So if what I eat causes another believer to sin, I will never eat meat again as long as I live–for I don’t want to cause another believer to stumble.
1 Corinthians 8:13

I have never wanted to be a pastor because of that first verse. Pastors do get held to a higher standard. It’s a part of the job description. Le’Andria Johnson does not profess to be a pastor but she does have a platform as a gospel singer and minister so that verse could be applied to her situation too. But let me not be a hypocrite, I remember after my book came out, my father had a discussion with me about how I conducted myself in public. Basically, he told me that people would be watching me. And that is true. I remember I went to restaurant/club to a birthday party for a friend, and I was dancing with my husband and I felt someone looking at me. I came of age during the Booty Shake music era so when I dance, I’m not doing a two-step…And I remember on another occasion, I went to a restaurant with some friends who all ordered drinks, and I declined – not because I didn’t want one or think it’s wrong to have a drink but because of how it would look. I hate that. I truly do because I’m just a regular ole girl tryin’ to get this thang right with God at the end of the day…

But according to the second verse, it’s not about me – particularly in public. As a Christian, your main job is tell others about Christ. period. the end. And even if you like to get turnt in your house, if doing that in public will cause even one person to think you (the Christian) is crazy and that Christ may not be all that because of you, then you have to check yourself. I hate that too. I do. But it’s true.

So back to to the questions that I asked. We are all sinners saved by the grace of God, but the fact of the matter is that none of us, not even preachers and teachers, will be without sin until we get to Heaven. However, that being said, that is not an excuse to act like we don’t know what the Bible says because will will never get it right. In fact, that means that we have to depend on the Holy Spirit even more to do what is right…And the Holy Spirit will convict you of what is wrong and what is right and help you do the right thing according to YOUR personal relationship with God…For example, according to my own personal relationship with God, I don’t have to listen to gospel music all day long…I love gospel music, but I’d die and have to go to Heaven right now if I had to listen to gospel music all day every day…And if you see me out and about acting “non Christianly,” try not judge me. God is not through with me yet, and I’m still working out my salvation fa sho…And trust that my personal relationship with God is the best thang that eva happened to me!!!

Finally, that’s why y’all need to stay off Periscope….

Any thoughts?

P.S. I hope to have my “Born Again” recap up by tomorrow…

Posted on Monday, June 8, 2015

Did You Watch Lifetime’s All-New Docuseries ‘Preach’ on Friday?! My Recap…

Hello World,

I did. My answer to the question in the headline of this post…smh…“Preach” is a visual representation of why some people are turned off by preachers and by extension Christianity…Don’t get me wrong…The show is entertaining…the same way an old-fashioned circus is entertaining complete with little people, giants, bearded women, conjoined twins, etc. This “docuseries” could be an opportunity to showcase female preachers, who are still not wholly accepted in the Church, speaking truth to power. Instead these female preachers use over-the-top antics and quips reminiscent of Jim Bakker (before he went to prison), Jerry Falwell and other evangelists of that ilk…

Below is a breakdown of the prophetesses, which is how they are addressed on the show, and what happened on the show…

Dr. Belinda C. Scott is the first prophetess shown the in the docuseries. She is the co-founder and co-pastor of New Spirit Revival Center Ministries, Inc., in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and apparently, the most prominent of the four prophetesses featured on the show. She corrals the three other prophetesses in order to have a deliverance service by the end of the show. She seems to be the most balanced of the four, and she comes across as sensible and empathetic. She has also done well in her ministry it seems. Her home, which is shown a few times, is large and luxurious and appears to be on a sizable lot as it is not near any other homes…

Adorned with a long blond over black hair wig, Dr. Taketa Williams says she has been known as the “Beyoncé of the Preaching World.” I don’t know about that, but I must admit her coral blouse that was long-sleeved on one side and short-sleeved on the other was giving me life…She co-pastors the Impact Christian Center in Columbus, Ohio…

Prophetess Linda Roark must be Lifetime’s answer to Pastor Paula White. She is a white woman with suburban mom blonde hair and blue eyes and claims she is known as the “Blue-Eyed Soul Sister.” With her loud, raspy voice, she says it has been said that “she may be white, but she preaches like she is black.” Roark, who is co-pastor of World Commissioned Church in Hamilton, Ohio, admits she has a past as she used to frequent bars and smoked weed…

Dr. Belinda’s former protégé Prophetess Kelly Crews, who is also white, is the only single prophetess…Like Dr. Belinda, she also comes across as balanced, which is maybe why not much of her story was revealed in this first episode….Kelly Crews Ministries is located in Bedford, Ohio…

And here is the twist about “Preach.” Each of these four prophetesses have protégés who are being mentored by the women…

Dr. Belinda’s mentee is Hadassah Elder. With her box braids in a huge bun, she looks more like Beyoncé than Dr. Taketa…No shade…Well, maybe a little… Her back story is pretty interesting…She grew up in the Muslim faith, and her mother is not trying to understand why she is now a Christian and wants to become a prophetess…Plus, her mom doesn’t understand tithing…Hadassah says her mother asked her, “Why do you tithe when you don’t have anything?” A fair question although I believe in tithing although it is not mandated according to the New Testament….Also, Dr. Belinda is teaching her how to “lay hands” so that she can do so during the deliverance service…Hadassah compares learning how to “lay lands” to getting your first pair of red bottom shoes…Okay? Really?

Like her mentor Dr. Taketa, her protégé Rebecca Hairston, a single mother with three girls, is also looking forward to learning how to “lay hands” like Dr. Taketa in this first episode…In preparation for this “laying hands” lesson, Dr. Taketa takes Rebecca to a gun range?! Where dey do that at? I guess in Ohio. Dr. Taketa says target practice is a good tool to learn how to harness the power used in “laying hands.” “In order to handle power, you have to focus,” Dr. Taketa says…Although Rebecca has three daughters, she hasn’t seen her middle daughter in four years…It wasn’t told why that is the case, but I guess that will be addressed in future shows…

Prophetess Linda’s protégé Angel Pound , a former drug addict who used to dance in clubs, comes across as a little touched…She declares that no witches, warlocks, demons, etc. will come against her mentor during her watch…I know that we Christians believe in demons and evil spirits, but her declaration made me feel some type of way…During one scene, she goes to her home and discusses her mentor with her husband….She tells him she isn’t going to watch TV and is going to fast and pray…In the next scene, she is shown praying loudly while on her knees in one room while her husband is the next room listening to her pray and looking a little puzzled…

To be honest, I really don’t remember much about Prophetess Kelly’s protégé Stacey Williams, who is newly married and pregnant…I guess more will be revealed…

The Deliverance Service…

Let me go ahead and admit something about myself…I don’t attend a charismatic church…If you come to my church, you will not see folks falling out or “laying hands”…It’s not that I don’t believe in “laying hands” because “laying hands” was mentioned in the Bible and falling out in front of Jesus and everybody is sometimes necessary when you are going through…But I’m just not all that used to that…And that is what folks are doing during this service…The prophetesses, along with their mentees, got to laying hands and folk fell out like it was hot in there…The mentees, particularly Hadassah and Rebecca, are scared to try it because they’ve never done it before…But they apparently learned their “laying hands” lesson because the whole room seems to have fell out in this episode…

Like I said, Preach was entertaining but not necessarily the best representation of female preachers…

What y’all think? Are you going to watch?

Any thoughts?

Posted on Sunday, May 24, 2015

Josh Duggar v. Bill Cosby and the Differences Between Liberal Christians & Conservative Christians

Hello World,

I get it. I really do. This visceral impulse to defend Josh Duggar who recently admitted and apologized for molesting young girls when he was a teenager. I felt the same way when I first scanned a singular article in which Bill Cosby was accused of being a serial rapist…In fact, below are my exact words from November 2014 blog post “What Would Jesus Do About Bill Cosby?”

I admit that I first came across an article in which the author alleged that Cosby had coerced several women to have sexual contact with him about three weeks ago. I quickly scanned the article but dismissed it an Internet hoax and or outright hogwash because Bill Cosby is Dr. Heathcliff “Cliff” Huxtable to me. And everyone in my generation knows that Dr. Huxtable is a noted obstetrician, husband to wife, attorney Clair Huxtable née Hanks and father to their five children.

And I ended my blog post with these words:

The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14.

Chile, won’t He do it? Yes, He will…If you parade yourself around as having no faults, sooner or later, God will let everyone know that you are like the emperor with no clothes on: just a regular ole human being just like the rest of us…And I’m not saying the Duggars of “19 Kids and Counting” think or thought they are or were perfect, but many of their fans sure seem to think or thought they are or were…And for the record, I’m still struggling with this whole Bill Cosby thing…

I get why many conservative Christians heralded the Duggars as an example of all that is good and perfect…

They live in middle America…For some reason, middle America seems to the base of “family values.”
They are Republican.
Michelle Duggar is proud and vocal about being a submissive wife. Her husband is unequivocally the head of the household.
They have 19 children which harkens back to a nostalgic time when the United States was primarily agrarian, and many children were needed to help farm the land. (If you didn’t have slaves.) Birth control is not an option.
The children are homeschooled so they are not tainted by the government-run public school system.
They believe in courtship not dating.

Those are just some of the most salient reasons why I can imagine the Duggars are so appealing to conservative Christians. I am reasonably sure there are other, less obvious reasons, why they have such a large fan base.

Liberal Christians, conversely, see these qualities differently…

“Family values” or values in general can be found in all of America.
They are mainly Democratic or somewhere in the middle.
Egalitarian marriages are more appealing.
A large family is not necessarily criticized, but a small family including one child or two children is fine too.
Public schools are not shunned.
Dating with respectful boundaries is appropriate.

I realize I’m generalizing here, and a lot of these qualities are on a continuum. And the truth is that I am somewhere in between myself. But what I want to say to my conservative brothers and sisters in Christ is this:

At best, the Duggar parents have been hypocrites in allowing their daily lives to be broadcast without revealing the full truth of what transpired in their daily lives. At worst, they have been co-conspirators in their son’s crime by not adequately dealing with the issue. According to a Washington Post article, the two supposed authority figures who we were responsible for counseling and or admonishing the then teenager for his actions were later accused of sexual crimes themselves!!!

So how are we, conservative Christians and liberal Christians, supposed to deal with this? Particularly when those who don’t like Christianity for a variety of reasons or those who are hungry for Christ’s love but just don’t know it yet are looking at us to see how respond?

My answer is this verse…

All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64:6

None of us are righteous – conservative or liberal – in God’s eyes without His grace and mercy and the blood that Jesus Christ shed for us. All of us are sinful. But what we cannot do is use this verse to excuse away our unrighteousness. To do so would make a mockery of Jesus Christ who suffered on the cross so that we could be reconciled to Him. I hope the Duggar family uses this painful revelation as an opportunity to right the wrong that was committed.

Any thoughts?