muscle? how would you how would one explain sending those pictures to someone? i m very curious to see how bishop long explains it. i m surprised he s going to do a press conference where he s going to take questions. because he s going to have to come up with some crazy some kind of gymnastics to execute that picture and to show it in a way it s not damaging. i totally agree with mark. long himself preached that homeosexuality is a sin. not necessarily teaching that homosexuality is a sin. that s the number one hypocrisy. but also the acceptance of gays and lesbians in the black church. i read a newsweek article, mark, saying when are gays and lesbians in the black church be treated as equals, or even allowed into the fold? the fundamental question is, will they be treated as human beings. while this is not unusual in the black church, there are strands
mark? i need to interject here. i think there s a homophobic undertone, not just with ted, but in the media in general. as ted points out, the inhumanity of eddie long, there s something fundamentally problematic. it doesn t have to do with homosexuality or heterosexuality. i actually worked with b.j. bernstein. whether or not these boys are gay or not isn t the point. the point is that a preacher has exploited his flock. that s the problem. as long as we continue to prosecute this in a way that sort of reinforces homophobia in our church and communities, we re going to have problems like this. that s why eddie long can go out there and be homophobic and at the same time prey upon the bodies of his flock. b.j. bernstein speaks to that. number three, guys, and thn we ll talk about it. he would use biblical stories to talk about how important it was to follow your leader.
fact, our leaders, sunday schoolteachers or anybody else, nobody is perfect. everybody s in process. and i don t say that to justify or explain anything away. just as a lesson in reality, that when we exalt people, that if it isn t this particular sin, it is another one. all have sinned, everybody needs redemption. thank you so much. ted haggard, shayne, mark lamot hill. and no yelling and screaming, just how i like it. thanks, don. pleasure. we ll check our top stories after a short break. a white chek on the top of every box to let people know that their cereals have healthy whole grain, and they re the right choice. (announcer) general mills makes getting whole grain an easy choice. just look for the white check.
empire, it creates new pragmatic realities that you have to deal with, and that means generating large sums of money, causing to take short cuts, or causing you to buy into the hype and see yourself as a star rather than as a humble servant. i think it can be good at enhancing the professionalism of the black church, but it could also be something that pride comes before fall as the bible says. mark, you re shaking your head very certainly there. what s going on? why are you doing that? well, because it s so easy, you know, to be se tduced by th cars and jets. you can actually just become a pit pimp. many of these preachers have become america s preachers. so when you get an eddie long or some other mega church ministers, there s a huge possibility, a huge trap you can
world with black enterprise. and shane lee is a professor at tulane university, and author of several books. gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. mark, is there a tendency in the black community to elevate church leaders to the level of superstars? oh, absolutely. we ve seen that since the very beginning of black people s journey here in america. for a long time preachers are one of the few people who access to education, one of the few people who could exercise true leadership. not just black religious life, but black cultural and political life. before we had presidents and senators, we had celebrity preachers. we continue to sort of raise them up now. shane lee, is that necessarily a bad thing? it depends. it can be good, because i think competition and having people, ministers learn from each other and prove their messages and ministries, technologies, the ways of meeting the needs and tastes of people, i think that s a good thing. but when you build the spiritual