black church
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God Is Love: Why Finding Common Ground Is Paramount to LGBTQ Folks Feeling Welcomed In Religious Spaces
“God loves me radically. And any member of faith, any leader of faith should also love me radically.” — Alphonso David, President of the Human Rights Campaign Growing up, Alphonso David spent a lot of time at the Lord’s house. Whether he was attending his mother’s three and a half hour long Baptist services or…
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This Ain't What Jesus Died For: Megachurch Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell Pleads Guilty to Defrauding His Own Flock in Multi-Million Dollar Investment Scheme
Houston megachurch pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell’s resume is no joke. He received his Masters in Divinity in 1981, joined the Continental Airlines board of directors in 1999, and served as a spiritual advisor to Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama. He also built his 16,000-member megachurch, Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, from the…
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Chicago Pastor Charged With Stealing Almost $1 Million to Splurge on a Bentley
Prosperity gospel is a controversial religious belief in which adherents equate material wealth or an opulent lifestyle with the will of God. It’s rooted in pro-capitalist and Pentecostal thought traditions and explains why pastors like Jesse Duplantis feel comfortable begging their flocks to cough up $54 million for a fourth private jet. But while this exploitative…
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New Study Reveals That the Only Thing Longer Than a Black Church Sermon Is a CVS Receipt
I believe the phrase is “life is not a sprint, it’s a marathon”—and if that’s the case, then what would you call Sunday service at a black church? A triathlon? Maybe the Tour de France? As anyone who’s had the misfortune of enduring a Sunday sermon from their friendly neighborhood black-ass pastor knows, that sanctified…
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Georgia Teen Arrested for Planning Knife Attack on Black Church
Gainesville, Ga., police arrested a white 16-year-old girl for an alleged plot to carry out a knife attack at a black church. A statement released from the Gainesville Police Department Tuesday confirmed that the church was targeted by the girl “based on the racial demographic of the members,” BuzzFeed reports. The girl, whose name has…
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SC Investigating Emanuel AME for Mishandling Charleston Church Massacre Donations
South Carolina’s statewide investigative agency is looking into one of America’s oldest black churches after a former employee raised questions about donations to the victims of a racial terrorist attack. On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof walked into Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., and opened fire during a Bible study session, killing South Carolina…
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She’ll Cut Ya: Pastoral Supporter of John Gray Promises to Rain Fire on Detractors of Embattled Rev
Poor pastor John Gray. He just can’t seem to win for trying. First, the paragon of piety, who became well-known while an associate pastor at Houston’s mega Lakewood Church, caught heat for buying his wife a $200,000 Lamborghini. Then, came news of an alleged affair (Gray told the women of The Real the affair was…
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The Whole Black Church and Me
One of the first sermons I ever preached was titled “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” In it, a very young and naive preacher, emboldened by an atmosphere that allowed impenitent homophobia to go unchecked, uses the language of revulsion to articulate why he believed same-sex relationships were wrong and not in line with…
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Pastor Faces Eternal Damnation (and 10 Years in Prison) For Stealing $35,000 From Church
“Food gained by fraud tastes sweet, but one ends up with a mouth full of gravel.” – Proverbs 20:17 I’ve never tasted $35,000 worth of gravel before, but I would imagine it tastes like either pruno or an under-seasoned felony conviction. But one individual who will have all the time in the world to find…