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Good Christians

by Radio Raheem

G21 Staff Writer

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Event #175: Religion

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OAKTOWN, CALI - My Moms has always been a church-going woman, and I know it kindah of hurt her when me and my brother, Aziz, got harder and harder to roust out of bed and take to Sunday School as the years went on.

Like that old "Dennis the Menace" cartoon says, the music was good but the commercial was too long.

I don't mean to make light of what happens in church, 'cause the church was the last center of anything that moved or shook the Black community --- some people want to believe it still is, but I ain't one of them. But I do gottah say that they lost most of us in the 'hood somewhere.

You go into a Black church in most cities in this country nowadays, from what I understand, and you see a whole lottah women, maybe some old men, but not most of the brothers got anything like blood in their veins and some kindah life outside of prison.

I'm sure some sociologist got all the reasons in the world about why this happened. If I had bothered to ask our PubMan before submitting this article, I'm sure he couldah pointed me in the direction of studies and such.

But the Real Deal, as far as I'm concerned, and why Moms had a hard time draggin' me and Azis down the road on a Sunday morning, I thinks, has a lot more to do with what we saw down at the church. Not a lottah Good Christians around on Sunday mornin' or any other day of the week. I see more generousity watchin' the game on Sunday, even football, then I ever seen inside the walls of the church.

You understand what I'm sayin'?

It ain't just those folks that judges you by your clothes, or where you lives, it's the back-biters and the gossip-mongers, too. It's the ones that smile in your face, Sister Mary, and hugs you like they love you, Brother Lucas, then is ready to talk about you as soon as you outtah earshot.

In my mind, this is part of what killed the Black church, took away all of its power in the community: HYPOCRISY.

You gottah look mighy hard among Sunday-go-to-meeting people to find anything near tryin' to be like Jesus.

So I started to figure, even as a kid, that there was two types of religion goin' on in the church.

There was folks who actually did visit the sick and infirm and bring them food and such, like my Moms. Folks who wouldn't say a bad word about anybody. Folks who thought that it was like a mission to help out in the community.

Then there was the folks who used the church to get over. Folks who would spit on you as soon as look at you. The kindah folks who you could never be good enough for, no matter how hard you tried, and who took a special delight in seeing you suffer some misfortune or make some stupid mistake. All that did was prove that they was better than you. They had the finest outfits on Easter Sunday, and they wailed the loudest when the preacher talked about the word of God, and they wouldn't give a blind man a dime on a street corner. This kind usually ended up being deacons and "Mothers of the Church."

You can have them, 'cause I don't want 'em. I'd rather watch John Elway throw a touch-down pass with my Sunday, or Ricky Henderson send another one out of the park. As far as I can see, this world just too short of Good Christians.

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I'm not even gonnah step to the white folks, the jihad and fatwa people like Pat Robertson or Ralph Richardson. They ain't worth my time, and they never lost any sleep over my situation or that of any Black folks. I keep wonderin' when they are gonnah feel comfortable enough with the racist situation in America to put on they hoods again.

NOW I UNDERSTAND that Back in The Day, the church had some kindah moral authority. You can't look at the Civil Rights movement, Dr. King, all that, and see the message of Good Christians could move our people, come make them rise up, could make them take beatings and put they lives on the line for their Human Rights.
But now all we got is midgets, posers, and wannabes. I'm not really sure what happened to the Good Christians, but I wonder about it.

I remember, when me and Aziz was little, we would wake up on a Sunday morning to Mahalia Jackson, Ethel Waters, Aretha Franklin, the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his choir, wailing their hearts out about the love of Jesus, the comfort for the broken hearted, the Promised Land.... It was wonderful and rapturous. Their ain't nothin' like Gospel music to reach down deep into your heart and make you believe there just might be some hope for this frontier planet and its bloody people.

It works its magic for a while... until you walk into the church door and look around as hard as you can tryin' to find one or two Good Christians.

Fight that The Powers That Be.

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