Nah, this won't be all that religious. I'm not going to tell you that you need to put your money in the bowl for Jesus, my gardener.
I kid.
I drove to the bank today to make the company's daily deposit. I pulled into the parking lot and I noticed a new Lexus IS. I wouldn't have thought anything more of it, but I'm a bit of a freak about reading license plates. I read every single license plate that I see. I don't know if anyone else does that, but I pay so much attention that I remember people on my daily commute by their license plate. It's kinda stalker-ish when you think about it -- so don't.
The license plate read "APASTOR." My blood pressure rose immediately.
I work in Saginaw, Michigan. During the heyday of the automotive boom, Saginaw was a very promising place to live. You could move in, get a job at an automotive parts plant with excellent pay and benefits, retire young and live the rest of your life worry free. Now you drive through Saginaw and you can't help but stare. Abandoned houses, urban prairies, and a heavily saturated liquor store market... It's a Philip Zimbardo experiment unfolding before your eyes.
As I walked inside the bank I scanned the lobby to see the man that was the PASTOR. He was wearing gold jewelry, a bluetooth headset, a Crackberry, and a very expensive pinstripe suit, with a hat to top it off. A preaching pimp, if you will. His wife was his female counterpart, complete with Dooney & Bourke purse, only her Crackberry wouldn't stop ringing.
Normally this wouldn't bother me. I generally try not to get jealous of other's fortunes. However, this man, and his marital lottery winning wife, made their fortune off the hope and tears of the poor.
I can't even begin to imagine this con's congregation. You know the misled give ten percent or more of their already measly incomes hoping that God will give back to them.
I know he's not the only pastor that does this. It's a common thing among inner-city churches. What I find so hard to understand is how the faithful stay duped. How can they give the money that they work their asses off for to these guys? The sheep drive rusted jalopies, buy five gallon buckets to catch the rain through the ceiling, and eat macaroni & cheese and Ramen noodles like they're going out of style while their pastor lives off their vision of heaven.
And what of the young men growing up in this situation? If the young man is normal, to contemporary American standards, he has to walk through gang territory, watch his neighbors get mugged and killed, decide if he should do drugs, and go to school where all of the aforementioned seeps through the brick walls of the classroom.
If he's smart he'll become a pastor.
7 comments:
Yeah, it's a sad sight cuban. I thank God whenever it comes to thought for my church/congregation; I like how things are done. I am not a fan of Pastors being paid anything. All church money, imo, belongs to the church and the congregation. I do not even like when churches pass around collection plates.
All I can hope cuban is that God makes his life complicated and irritable in ways that the solution would be to downsize his lifestyle and give back to God's house rather than his own.
It's a sad thing, it really is.
The rich and poor alike should introduce more sprouts into their diets.
You know what Cuban, I grew up in a poverty stricken, black and hispanic neighborhood my entire young life, and I have a very siilar story, but I'll keep it short.
I worked front desk at a Marriott in said neighborhood, near the airport. A VERY wealthy man walks into our hotel, and asks me about renting a conference room. Through our talks I learned that he was the pastor of the church a mile from my house, and get this; he wanted the conference room to entertain franchisees'(punc? yeah, whatever)
So, here is a pastor, wearing platinum jewelry, driving an Escalade, and wearing a very custom silk suit, opening franchises off money he wrangled selling his false hope to the destitute. I was disgusted, but took care of him.
I started to pay more attention when I drove past the church. He has two stretch hummer limos, private parking spaces for his Escalde and his wifes Mercedes, as well as a lot attendant to protect his vehicle.
He also owns the KFC steps from the churches parking lot, a Churches Chicken a mile east, another Churches Chicken farther south, and a Long John Silvers in the same area. he was looking into buying franchise rights for a Taco Bell.
This man is spending the prayers of his community on items to further his own wealth, and it disgusts me.
God is within, and no amount of church, or religious protocol will render tat false. I dont need to absolve a fucking thing to a pastor to have faith and go to heaven, because I have a simple human emotion called empathy. I feel what I do, good or bad, and when bad, feel regret and sadness for what I did. That, means I am trying to be a good person. I do things simply to help people, and that, is called kindness. That, my friend, is enough for me, and god willing, good enough to grant me access to live out eternity with my family and friends.
That pastor has demons to deal with that I am glad I dont, as does the one you brilliantly wrote about in this fucking amazing blog.
'Dock
I have to agree it's disgusting to see people in those type of positions that are supposed to be here to help the community, but in all reality are just stealing from the poor to succeed in the materialistic society of today. It makes me sick. What has this world come to that people think nothing of others and only of themselves.
That guy and the one Dock wrote about will have to answer for their deeds. But being a good person, doing good deeds, and kindness alone won't get you into heaven.
It's sad that this stuff happens and it happens all the time. But pastors should get paid. They work just as hard as anyone else and shouldn't have to do it for free. Of course I'm not referring to the two Pimp Pastors mentioned here.
I wish Teachers could roll pimp status, for all the bullshit they have to deal with.
Yeah - those pastors suck. I think we all agree. But I have to say that you can't claim they are offering false hopes to people. People give them their money blindly because for whatever reason, that man gives them hope through his words (whether or not you agree with his words or the beliefs he teaches). The fact is that the people who give him the money find hope in him, and that's why they give the money.
I'm not saying that I think the pastors are right for using the money for themselves -- they should be using it towards their communities or mission work or whatever else.
My point is solely to offer up a reason for people giving them money in the first place. Everyone finds hope in different things. They find their hope in him
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