Honk for Jesus. Save your soul
There are two institutions in the black community that are off limits and that is the church and Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLO) or the divine 9. In the last two generations or so, we have seen an increase of people willing to speak about their experiences with their fraternity or sorority and the church but speaking out is considered a betrayal of the organizations that have taken care of and protected the black community when there was nothing else for us. While there may be a public show of support for those who choose to tell the truth, they are often ostracized and shunned behind closed doors. It is still very much “what happens in this house stays in this house” type of thing. There have been many movies made about church and Greek letter organizations and the controversy is always that certain things should be respected and kept private and never a complete denial of anything depicted. Many people have threatened to sue but these lawsuits either quietly go away or never materialize. Whenever you share information that people don’t like, there is always a threat of a lawsuit and it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong, all that matters is who has the better lawyers and the money to tie up the legal system and bankrupt the other side. Money will always talk, no matter the color of the person who has it.
Absolute power corrupts. It doesn’t matter in which context that power is to be had, it always corrupts. There is a lot of intersectionality between the church and the divine 9, although more people are leaving their organization due to religious reasons. Martin Luther King Jr. and Andrew Young were members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., Coretta Scott King, Berniece King, and Rosa Parks are all members of the illustrious Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., I am a bit biased, Jesse Jackson was a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., John Lewis, Huey P. Newton, and Hosea Williams were members of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., Betty Shabazz and Shirley Chisolm were members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and Jamal Bryant and Ralph Abernathy were members of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. I could go on all day but that’s not the point of this chapter. If you notice the one thing all of these organizations have in common, it’s the inc. behind it. Every last one of these BGLO’s are businesses and they thrive on a level of exclusivity, elusiveness, as well as dues, fees, donations, and expenses to survive. No business, no matter if it is in the business of saving souls or the black community, does not thrive without a revenue source and that could be tithes, offerings, book sales, and speaking fees or yearly dues but some money needs to change hands in order for these businesses to survive. Just like there is no shortage of BGLO scandals and controversies and people, there are no shortages of church scandal. So much so, they can’t even decide which one the movie, Honk for Jesus. Save Your soul is based on.
When you have someone who is essentially a nobody with a fancy title given absolute power over people to the point where people literally give their last just to be in the same vicinity, that is where the corruption comes in. It’s just like when those 18, 19, and 20 year old’s finally put on that jacket. It’s a powershift. You now have something that many want and the power to give it to them. Depending on the size of the school and the chapter, there could be anywhere from 300 to thousands of young men and women applying for an organization and only a small percentage are picked. That means you have to find a way to stand out because even being a legacy is not enough. There are people literally willing to lick the boots of members of certain organizations, and with an immature mind and a thirst for power, one of two things may happen, people are going to end up bruised at best, in a coffin at worse and it has happened too many times to count, and nearly every single divine 9 organization has, at least, one death publicly attributed to their hazing process, which is why the intake process has changed so much over the last 30 years. It’s not only the college students partaking in these behaviors. Many people, with arrested development, come back to the only time and place they ever had power and inflict pain on people younger than their children. There is a lot to be said but I’m not trying to start a debate, get an email, or have to proclaim I am not the spokesperson for my organization, although everything I am saying, substantiated or unsubstantiated, is public record.
I don’t know if it’s the information age and the ability to talk to different people from all over the world with different experiences but the younger generations don’t have a lot of patience for hateful sermons about sexuality, fire and brimstone, or watching the prosperity preachers Gen X and up, would have left the church due to the pastor’s questionable sexuality, Millennials, Xillennials, which is a mix of younger Gen Xers and older Millennials, would have left the church due to hypocrisy. How are you knocking down men, in some cases underaged teenaged boys, yet preaching homophobic messages and using the wife, you cannot even get fully aroused for, to shame homosexuals and unmarried people. One of the reasons why the church is failing is because you cannot preach hate for one group, no matter what you believe, and expect them to give you free labor. Many choir directors, members, teachers, deacons, evangelists, ushers, and people of all sexual orientations have given the church years of free labor, without even so much as a thank you, only to be excommunicated due to their sexual or gender identity. We have families willing to abandon their children and allow them to sleep on the streets due to the teachings of the same pastors who are sleeping with half of the members of their congregations. It’s all hypocritical. I never understood how you allow the church to make you hate people that sin differently than you, but you give a pass to that same pastor. It doesn’t make sense.
While we still have millennial pastors pulling in millions of views a week on social media, like Mike Todd, Steven Furtick, Stephanie Ike, Sarah Jakes Roberts, Robert Madu, and Pastor Mike Jr. the church is changing, and the black community is no longer dependent on it and many younger people are leaving the church, moving to online and virtual communities, and taking their children, and the future generation of the church, with them. How do many people find a church home? Through their family. If there is no brick-and-mortar family church, people feel less inclined to join and be apart of the community, which means less bodies to do the work and less tithes. This is why the church is doing the welcome home Sunday. People have always wanted the sermons but instead of buying them, they can now get them for free on Youtube, Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram. Less holy ghost means less tithes and no tithes mean the walmartization of the church. The big conglomerates of preachers with a large online following will thrive while small mom and pop churches with only a local, older congregations, will continue to see their numbers dwindle. Let’s be real, if I can get the same thing at home, in my pajamas, why am I going through all of that and dealing with all the stress that come with church people? It’s something to consider.
One thing I found interesting in the film was the irony of the first lady wearing clown make up, I know its technically mime make up, but the point is still there, it doesn’t matter if she was miming or clowning, she was still putting on a performance for the public in support of her husband. It was clear the first lady was unhappy. I don’t know what ideas society tells you about women and sex, but women don’t stop wanting sex after marriage or a certain age. I am sure she wanted to have sex with her husband but this man, who is clearly conflicted in his sexually, could not even muster up enough strength to have sex with her or even look her in the face as she was giving him oral sex. That is a big sign. It is one thing to have your eyes closed in pleasure, it is another thing to completely cover your face. Her husband, even with the scandal and all the performing they were doing, couldn’t stop soliciting young men long enough for the settlement to be reached. He was already hitting on another man. This is the life of many women. It may not be a church or conflicting sexuality but it’s something. Many wives grin and bear it because of societal pressures. Her own mother told her not to give up on her marriage. Women are expected to sacrifice ourselves for an institution that teaches women aren’t allowed to preach or lead. Timothy 2:11-15 are very misogynistic and outdated but there they are. The bible says because of Eve’s sin, women should learn in silence (2:11), are not permitted to teach or dominate a man (2:12), and will be saved through childbearing (2:15). The verse about Eve is 14. This is all in the bible. Sure, the first lady has standing in the community, she can shop at all the fancy stores, and she has a big house and all the fancy cars she could ever want but there is literally a mile between her and her husband at the dinner table. The other unspoken reason for the mass church exodus in the film and real life, is that xillinnials, Millennials, and Gen Z are no longer believe in the stand by your man. While there are plenty of younger women who are pick me’s, many older women Gen X and above are still in that mindset of standing by your man, a man is going to be a man, as long as he comes home and provides, what he does outside of the home is none of your business; and keeping your family together no matter what. In an interesting juxtaposition, the first lady was being berated by a former female congregant for standing by her publicly philandering husband while in that exact same moment, that same husband, the one who actually did the discretions that caused them to be in this situation was getting praised. If that’s not a metaphor for life, I don’t know what is.
There are many things in this movie that are implied and hinted at but never said out loud. It is up to us as the audience to put together the context clues. This is not too different from real life church. A lot of people will put their heads in the sand and ignore as long as there is still hope and whatever is happening behind the scenes isn’t too blatantly obvious.
The circle and irony of life is the second the pastor in the movie messed up, there was a new church with a young preacher ready to benefit from their misdeeds. Many members moved to that church. If you remember the Eddie Long scandal of 2010, Creflo Dollars told the members of his church to go back. I am willing to bet that if the new pastor doesn’t keep his head on straight and stay focused on his wife and God, that in about 10-15 years he will be going through something similar, it is the circle of life. They were very nice nasty and seemed supportive, but you don’t become successful in any arena without being smart, savvy, and a bit cunning. Someone always gets stabbed in the back. It’s a subtle stab but it’s still there.
In the movie, the Child’s lost all but five members of their 25,000 member congregation and that is the only part of the movie that really stood out as fantastical. While many of the younger members would have switched churches, I can guarantee you all 25,000 members would not jump ship, homosexual hypocrisy or not. At best, he would publicly be shunned by the local community until he redeemed himself and he would have maybe lost half of his members, if that. If Eddie Long’s church is still thriving and didn’t even come close to closing at the peak of the scandal, although many members did leave, and the church still has 25,000 members with a weekly attendance of 12,000, the Child’s church wouldn’t have closed. They would have been temporarily embarrassed, hired a PR team, went on a faux apology tour, Rev, Child would have went to rehab, and if they want to get extreme, he would preach a sermon about being molested as a child and how that has affected his sexual orientation. It all comes from the same playbook. Lather, rinse, and repeat. No one is more loyal than a congregation who chooses to be blind. People don’t leave the church, they leave pastors. A Baltimore area church, one whose former pastor is ironically the now pastor of said New Birth church, had many scandals and his congregants had to be worse than the Beyhive. They should have a name. I remember having a debate with a family member and she got in her feelings and called another family member the devil, she caught herself, but it was still funny, shocking, and eye opening. Even after the scandal, a few viral moments, and more secret babies, the church continued to thrive. It was only after that pastor left that the church began to get on shaky ground and many loyal members, including that family member finally left the church. It is unrealistic to think everyone would leave. It’s just like public figures who do egregious things, someone will always be willing to turn a blind eye because they enjoy their music, movies, or they have impacted their life in some way. Even after MuteRKelly, his music has continue to trend on TikTok. People have always used the excuse of separating the art from the artist, even when that artist was supposed to be saving souls. Trust, if Rev. Childs had that much of an impact on the community, many people, even public figures, would have turned a blind eye, as long as he brought in the money and could influence his congregation to think and do whatever the powers that be wanted. The reason why Jim Jones, the preacher not the rapper, was allowed to get away with everything he did, was because of his power. If he told his congregation, which was estimated to be 20,000 at its peak, to vote one way, they all did. He was so influential that he was even appointed housing commissioner of San Francisco and that political protection shielded him from the true consequences of his actions and allowed him to move his congregation to Guyana, because how do you just move thousands of people out of the country, and once it came out what happened and what was happening, everyone who benefited from his cult acted like they had no idea what was going on. They didn’t care, they just wanted the money and the votes and that’s nothing new.
