Unlike Dad, God did kick Richard Roberts home

Those are the hands of God but this is not Allstate

“Like Father, Like Son,” the axiom speaks. And I suppose it’s a destined-to-fill prophecy in a televangelism empire based in Tulsa, Okla.

In 1986, Oral Roberts exclaimed to his TV audience (and any other schlep that would listen) the following about what God told him in a candid conversation:

“I want you to use the ORU medical school to put my medical presence in the earth. I want you to get this going in one year or I will call you home. It will cost $8 million, and I want you to believe you can raise it.”

Yeah, about that. In the following two years, Oral Roberts raised $9.1 million for the lovely titled “City of Faith.” So, Oral wouldn’t be going home. Good times.

Well, that was April 1987 and in October 1987, the medical city was closed down, medical scholarships were discontinued and Oral Roberts wasn’t afraid of God any longer. Well, hey, at least he was $9 million richer, so he could afford the insurance plan.

Fast forward to this recent story about his son, president of ORU and legacy of the televangelism empire. Evidently, Richard Roberts has a propensity for redecorating his house monthly at the student’s endowment behest and his bethrothed, Lindsay, is really a cougar on the prowl for co-eds via text messaging.

In short, the school is $50 million in the hole, professors are being fired, students are leaving the leering press was waiting. And wait they did for the school to do something… it did.

Thanks to this interesting story in The Oklahoman, ORU fired the once-suspended televangelist wunderkind, gave him the rest of his $223,000 salary and rid themselves of the university’s namesake.

All this drama because of three scorned professors, and a former accountant at the university, Trent Huddleston, was fired for knowing too much, said something, canned and then called his lawyer. From there, God said it was time to send someone home.

“ORU appreciates the mission and spiritual heritage that we continue to maintain, which originated by the vision of Oral Roberts,” Ralph Fagin, ORU’s interim president, said in a statement Friday. “We value the years of investment Dr. Richard Roberts has made at ORU. We move forward with a heightened sense of duty and responsibility to the fruit of this great university — its students and alumni.”

This is PR-speak for “The jig is up for Mr. Sticky Fingers and his trollop wife. Now that he is out of here, let’s get back in the black, educate these kids and work on renaming this school to ‘Tulsa Jesus College’ later.”

Hey, stranger things have happened. Stay tuned, I’m sure this isn’t the last we will hear from ORU.

GOBAMA: BarackStar sings “Talking ’bout my Generation”

Despite the ramblings of ordained brain-dead dolts like Shirley Caesar, this past presidential election was historic for several reasons – mainly because there is a black man (well, half black but you infer the reverence) in the White House.

And although I am a premiere oppugnant about pastors discussing their political preference in the pulpit, I understand the private gala affairs black pastors everywhere held in their homes watching the BarackStar accept his nomination before the throngs in Chicago.

You see, before they were men of the cloth – they were men, black men, many of which can remember the plight of the Civil Rights Movement. All of which are susceptible to believing the hype amidst pomp and circumstance in this election.

So when I read quotes like this in this riveting New York Times story, I empathetically and understandably grant the levity:

“It’s ushered in a new generation of leadership,” said Mr. Brawley, 40, the incoming pastor of Saint Paul Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn. “It symbolizes the Moses generation passing the baton to the Joshua generation. So the Obama presidency presents us with both an opportunity and a challenge.”

Of course it’s a challenge because it’s a mass changing of the guard. There are millions of pairs of shoes to fill. Civil rights heroes from the pulpit (affection aside for the most annoying) like Jackson, Sharpton, Calvin Butts and Floyd Flake are about to close a friggin’ thick chapter in a book entitled, “We are still oppressed.”

And now their collection of racially fueled sermons are growing irrelevant, it’s time they give white pastors a shot at reaching across the aisle, so to speak.

“It will open them up for more dialogue with white churches,” he said, “and it will open up white churches for more dialogue with them. You will have a generation of black ministers who want to embrace the reconciliation embodied by Obama. They haven’t been hurt so badly by racial segregation that they can’t reach out with a little more openness and a little less fear than I might have.”

“Generation of black ministers” is code for “old crumudgeons who are not quite bitter to ignore any attempt reputable white pastors may have at serving a colorless, genderless, hate-less God.”

The hate of the 60s cuts deep from some folk, but to generalize all people on account of the sins of a few is just as sinful as committing those sins on account of skin tone in the first place.

Obama being in office will do a lot for – and against – this country depending on who you ask about change. However, the one thing his face will do for future pastors is give hope to many spiritual leaders who believe progress in this country starts and stops by how you look.

“The onus is now on the black church to use the iconic example of President Obama to challenge our own ranks,” he put it. “We have a president who looks like us. The question is, how much do we look like him?”

Jesus really did run for president

Not a presidential elections trots by the calendar that causes some voters to lose faith in the system and decide neither candidate is worth a hanging chad.

Write-in votes are all the rage for some people hell bent on making a statement. Obviously, this year Hillary and Ron Paul were favorites of handwritten whims everywhere, as was the ever-popular “None of the Above.”

But it seems a few other notables made an appearance on ballots across the country, as noted from this NBC affiliate in Jacksonville, Fla.

Among the write in votes were those who really ran for president or vice-president during the long primary campaign: Sen. Hillary Clinton, Rep. Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin and even Steven Colbert… and Jesus, God, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

Nice to know the Almighty was in some good company – he was up for consideration and all.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to see the White House inhabitated by cartoon characters? The approval rating sure of the president would go up, and who knows, maybe that bipartisan thing could actually take place as well.

Paula White may be going back on government cheese after all

In an effort to separate herself from all things sacred and just move to the sublime (as in “life coaching”, an unfortunate trend of former preachers who believe Hollywood is their mission field), Paula White decided to leave her husband and her church last year.

Granted, she kept her last name (because who really knows her last name is Furr), her connections to Without Walls and maintains pimping being a pastor’s wife, but never mind that right now.

What’s important is all her claims of growing up trailer park trash, living on food stamps and eating curds of “gub’mint cheese” maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy as her gravy train has lost its conductor, thanks to this story from the St. Pete Times.

The California-based Evangelical Christian Credit Union holds the church’s mortgage, and filed foreclosure proceedings against Without Walls Tuesday. Court records show the church defaulted on a loan that was due in August. The credit union is demanding immediate repayment of that loan and the $12-million mortgage on Without Walls’ Grady Avenue property.

So much for that debt-free persona, eh? Looks like Paula White’s days of robbing Peter… and Bernice, and Shaquilla, and Demetrius, and Lameka, and well, you get the idea of her target demo… to pay Paul (Crouch, that is) are over. And being true to form for scandalous behavior – Paula’s scorned ex finds the scapegoat, the economy. Of course.

“In my opinion, it’s nothing more than greed from a Christian bank who’s supposed to be working with Christians,” White said. “I don’t think Bank of America or SunTrust would ever do what this bank’s done. I think it’s because they’re drowning, they’re pulling so many people in with them. They’re scrambling.“

Not that I have ever owed nor refused to pay $26 MILLION [they owe another $13 million on their second church property] to a federal banking institution NOT in need of a bailout, but I seriously doubt they let that kind of swarthy demeanor go long without a phone call or two.

Hey, uh, Paula? Where’s your atonement offering to save your own church? You would think what you pay in make-up alone would take care of the rent for a few months.

Depoliticize the Pulpit: The Church speaks out and shows its color

Without going into heavy details, I know from whence I speak when I say Shirley Caesar – yeah, Gospel icon and self-espoused “Diva for God” – is one horrendous excuse for how a Christian should act. And almost shameful to the Black Church (No, this isn’t a double standard. Yes, there is a difference).

Despite what I know (and have experienced first-hand), check this story about a sermon she opened in her Mount Calvary Word of Faith church entitled, “God Vindicated the Black Folk.”

“Too long we’ve been at the bottom of the totem pole, but he has vindicated us, hallelujah,” she cried. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t have nothing to put my head down for, praise God. Because when I look toward Washington, D.C., we got a new family coming in. We got a new family coming in. And you know what? They look like us. Amen, amen. They look like us.”

Look here, Doc (with your uber-fake and completely honorary Ph.D.), a few notes for your high holy clarification:

1. God “vindicated” us the moment this tall Amish-looking dude looking all presidential stood up and discussed his four score years in under four minutes. It’s egregious and shameful it took reiteration 100 years later from Dr. King and the giants of the civil rights movement.
2. God allows man the ability to choose, such as the men who chose to tell Texas slaves more than two years later about that very speech. (For the record, any fool who openly advocates Juneteenth is embracing a generation of people just being duped. Good on ya!).
3. Man’s unadulterated and abysmal choices have caused more pain upon generations of mankind than any war, any plague, anything. Choices don’t require vindication. They demand a reckoning.
4. Black folk TODAY weren’t vindicated. No one in my clique, fraternity or family felt that reckoning and shattering of stereotypes, but no vindication. That word implies guilt and 90 percent of this country’s white folk (because let’s be honest, that’s who this bigoted broad is targeting with her vitriol) had nothing to do with the atrocity of slavery 400 years ago.

Sunday is indeed the most segregated day of the week, and prejudicial fools like Caesar only prove (and enhance) Dr. King’s – and yours truly – argument. She could care less about the anybody-not-black-folk who adore her music, which is shameful considering who she represents.

She is more focused on the hollow, half-baked promises of Barack Obama, than the grace-filled truth in the Word of God at this moment.

He is our (yes, even for those of you who can’t stand his policies or his skin tone) president and we should pray for him like crazy. But to extol him as the banner of righteousness over years of oppression is lunacy. It is a benchmark of how far this country has came… not just you, Shirley Caesar.

Obviously, people in this position need it… case in point, the dude packing his boxes now.

If you are a black pastor, and are old enough to remember – or worse, lived through – the Civil Rights Movement, by all means celebrate! BUT, know this moment is not just for you. Barack Obama was voted in by 54 percent of this country. In other words, not just “black folk.” Much to your collective dismay, white folk, brown folk, red folk and even yellow folk were sprinkled on your political salad that you are attempting to toss.

If I was old enough to have marched, I would dip my corns in gold and show them off to the world. But since I am attached to it only by history books and a few divine personal encounters, I can only pontificate here. Much like everyone else black, white or Neapolitan who wasn’t there as well. What’s interesting is all the Hispanics and Whites that marched as well. What Dr. King espoused was peace – a sacred principle devoid of color or creed. It was meant for black folk, but it impacted us all.

The “us all” is crucial to this argument considering Barack Obama is half-white. So, did God only vindicate half of his family. That’s kind of rude considering Obama is the strident vindicator, don’t you think?

MEMO to Shirley Caesar: You’re an idiot. Consider you have a global audience and although in your world, it’s black like your coffee… THE world is not. It’s more like… well, Obama. A melting pot of religion, race, creed and culture. Which reminds me of something:

If God is in the business of vindicating “the black folk,” what in the hell is he waiting for when it comes to the Native Americans? Iron Eyes Cody ran out of tears eons ago waiting for that. You old twit.