The Constant Gardener
Tribalism And Black Leadership
It’s possible human beings are simply not wired for fame,
that fame inevitably corrupts even the best of us. It must be a lot like crack, where, no matter how strong an individual you are, sooner or later the chemicals involved will overpower your sense of self and you end up as yet another bony liar hustling drivers with a squeegee. The real peril of the failed Mega Preacher or Mega Bishop is, even more so than local pastors, they set themselves high and above us. They are better than us. Most certainly holier than us. They have tens of thousands of followers. Followers whose faith is injured, diminished, or, most tragically, lost when these men become so utterly full of themselves that they can’t possibly imagine being in the wrong. To my knowledge, Jesus owned absolutely nothing. He owned, maybe, the clothes on His back. He relied on the generosity of others as He, “Went about doing good,” (Acts 1). And Jesus never, in recorded history, spoke boastfully of Himself. His major boast was to equal Himself to God, which, in retrospect, wasn’t a boast at all.
Bishop Long made news in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for a questionable charity set up in 1995 and dissolved in 2002. The main point of this charity, from financial papers obtained by the Journal-Constitution and published on their website, appears to have been to launder money from Long’s New Birth ministry to Long himself. According to the Journal-Constitution, Long’s charity, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc., took out a $1,160,000 mortgage to purchase a home in March 1998, according to DeKalb County property records. The mortgage was paid off by 2003, records show. In October 2002, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries notified the IRS that the charity was dissolving and pledged to transfer all of its assets to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. The house was never transferred. Instead, a year later, Long signed papers relinquishing the charity's interest in the home, making himself the sole owner. The same day, Christmas Eve 2003, Long took out a $300,000 loan using the house as collateral.
The trend among these mega-ministries
is to elevate most
any preacher with a huge congregation to Bishop. These days, in
the black church, everybody's a Bishop, a political title
traditionally reserved for overseers of groups of churches.
Modern denominations such as The Church of God In Christ and the
African Methodist Episcopal Church have well-defined hierarchies
in which a Bishop serves a specific and definable function, and
it is an office attained through well-established paths of
erudition and study, service and spirituality. The office is
authorized by and subject to a governing body, and the office
has a well-defined scope and serves a specific and definable
purpose. These men, as a result, have credible authority as
Bishops.
Almost none of which applies to the Mega Preacher or Mega Pastor
who is elevated to Bishop. I'm about as well informed as the
average person on the street, and I can't define, in any real
terms, what these Bishops are “Bishops” of, what their specific
authority is, what their role is, who they report to, or what
qualifies them to be “Bishop.” The path many mega preachers take
toward Bishop is less well-defined and operates within a very
loose structure that seems to rely more on popularity and head
count than any definable or credible structure. Elevated either
by the zealousness of star-struck followers unsatisfied with the
mere title “pastor” (or who wrongly assume that, over a certain
head-count, their pastor should be called “bishop"), or by their
own egos, many of these mega-pastors have loosely allied
themselves in self-envisioned ecumenical associations and have
voted one another as “Bishop” of this or “Bishop” of that. These
choices are likely based on head count and bank account and
overall popularity, and apparently use the apostolic definition
of episcopos—an overseer—rather than the political distinction
of most organized Christian faiths.
In apostolic times, there was no difference as to order between
bishops and elders or presbyters ("licensed” or “ordained”
ministers; Acts 20:17-28; 1 Pet. 5:1, 2; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3).
The term bishop is never once used to denote a different office
from that of elder or presbyter. These different names are
simply titles of the same office, “bishop” designating the
function, namely, that of oversight, and “presbyter” the dignity
appertaining to the office. Christ is figuratively called “the
bishop [episcopos] of souls” (1 Pet. 2:25).
As a result, these are, in large measure, “Bishops” who more or
less decided they would start calling themselves Bishops, as
there is only a flimsy and easily defied legal or political
structure that supports their title. The man or woman on the
street, however, usually doesn't necessarily know this, and
assumes their mega preacher has been awarded the title of Bishop
through erudition and study, years of service, submission to a
governing body or authority and, above all, the will and purpose
of God—none of which are necessarily true. Most also assume
their own church pastors are somehow less anointed than and fall
somewhere in the chain of command of these Mega Bishops, which
is also not necessarily true. Even the contentious and largely
useless National Baptist and National Baptist USA conventions
can't exercise any measurable authority over the church on the
corner.
However, as a result, we tend to hold these Mega Bishops in high
esteem. We also, therefore, have a right to expect extraordinary
leadership from these men in times of crisis, which makes Bishop
Morton's “stranded in Jersey” claim during Hurricane Katrina a particularly hard sell
(especially since, at the same time, Bishop TD Jakes appeared in
a New Orleans TV news shot behind President Bush, in work
clothes, physically loading boxes onto a transport).
It's been fun to call thee guys “bishop,” and they look great in
the robes and hats, but we need to take a good hard look
at our spiritual leaders, holding them accountable.
As a body of believers, we have paid billions, with a “B", into
these Mega Ministries. It is reasonable that we hold them
accountable to God for failures to look after the flock or to
live up to the principles and precepts they so elegantly
proclaim.
BISHOP EDDIE LONG'S COMPENSATION
Between 1997 and 2000, Long received $3.07 million in
compensation from Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc.
- $1,450,000 — House
- $1,037,992 — Salary
- $350,812 — Use of Bentley
- $195,145 — Home improvements, including $135,560 for landscape improvements, $3,286 for a parsonage pool table, $35,169 for a built-in hutch, plus other items.
- $13,074 — Property taxes
- $16,000 — Expense account
- $9,600 — Benefits, deferred compensation
- $3,072,623 — Total
- Sources: From 990 income tax returns filed by Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc. and DeKalb County tax records.
Look, I honestly don't care how much money these guys make.
There is nothing unbiblical about a prosperous pastor, especially if he's profiting from his own books like Joel Osteen and TD Jakes, or a successful recording career like Bishop Paul Morton. I've never cared how big a pastor's house is so long as the ministry is not struggling to pay for it. I have no way of knowing where Bishop Long got the million dollars with which to pay these young men (assuming that figure is true, or that the money wasn't put into a blind trust or something), but so long as that's his money and not the church's money, it does not concern me. The truth, however, is that none of these guys' books or DVD's or record sales would be anything were it not for the mega-ministry they lead, ministries built on the backs and sweat and tithing of Joe Lunchbucket, who receives not a dime in royalties. If I were TD Jakes, I'd get a list of every charter member of the Potter's House and work some kind of incentive payment, a kind of thank-you, a few pennies per book sold paid to each family. Jakes wouldn't even miss it, and the money would be a tremendous blessing to those families.
While I presume at least one-tenth of these millions goes back to the church, we have no way of knowing what if any biblical giving these guys do. That is an issue between themselves and God. I also have a problem with huge ministries that horde cash, ministries with tens of millions of dollars in the bank. Maintaining a reasonable emergency reserve is prudent and responsible, but hording cash while getting over on the public dole for tax-exempt prime real estate is just wrong. It'll never happen, but local government should go after churches and ministries with holdings exceeding, say, three years' operating expenses for reasonable property and other taxes. This would elicit a loud hew and cry from the public, but we're not talking about your church on the corner unless it has ten million dollars in assets. A church with ten million dollars in assets does not need nor deserve tax-exempt status. Such a ministry could, in fact, do itself and the public an amazing amount of good by voiding its 501(3c) and deferring tax-exempt status. It doesn't need it. It is an obscenity for a church to have ten million in assets and still ask its community to subsidize its activities. I frankly do not see any God in that.
The Journal-Constitution’s report goes on with damaging quotes from Long himself, on the defensive and offensive, “We're not just a church, we're an international corporation,” Long said. “We're not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can't talk and all we're doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a multimillion-dollar congregation. You've got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that's supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering.”
It is not our faith in God but our tribal instinct that keeps such voices in our pulpits, money flowing into their pockets. And sadly, when this one's gone, we'll run right out and get another one just like him.
Related: Why Tribalism Is Holding Us Back
Christopher J. Priest
7 October 2012 (page 1)
10 July2011 (page 2)
15 September 2005 (page 2)
editor@praisenet.org
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