When Church Turned ‘Hip-Hop’ so Did the Rest of the World

This has been ANOTHER of those issues that has divided me from my family! I even love gospel music, a few shout-outs!  But I don’t want the lack of reverence that well established churches and religions are now buying into. We party all the rest of the time; do we have to party at church too?

You can’t just go to church to pray and save your soul; to have your personal moment in reverence with your Savior and minister asking for peace and salvation. No, you have to put on your best dress and party shoes from the night before, fancy up for the show that church has become. You have to be of similar political thinking, since the “reverend” is going to interject his political opinion on how your soul will be saved; and he will judge who is worthy in the name of The Lord. You receive far-reaching interpretations from the exact teachings of any religious guides like The Holy Bible. Their translations don’t seem very God-like or soul-saving to me!

I think some of the translations have gone too far. People have liberalized religious concepts so much to the extent of completely bastardizing them. In the name of (the same ole’ characters) “diversity” and “political correctness” the church has allowed all kinds of ‘change’ to take place. And very little of the change I’ve seen is for the better, if any!

My friend and I discuss how we are disgusted over how the large, organized religions feel the need to make church “fun”. We compared how family members don’t want to be “bored” at church. Drums, hand-clapping, and comedy skits at church energize parishioners before church services begin! A charismatic pastor draws in the crowds. The message is unimportant, potentially even harmful.  People don't want to feel bad that they've sinned!

The very last time my husband went to church with me, the new, modern-thinking pastor planned a youth group “drill team” style presentation on how the youth loved Jesus. It was done in honor of “Black History Month”. The pastor praised the youth, saying “it’s TIME to accept the Hip-Hip Culture into our church!” My husband was livid, He immediately understood the impact of that declaration, and vowed to never return.

My husband, who appreciated reverence in worship, saw the impending signs of our small, quiet, friendly, forgiving, and spirit-filled place of worship soon becoming a disorderly, competitively “ill-managed” (by the special interests groups who had already began infighting) locale for superficially studying the importance of following Christ. There were numerous “programs” to attend other than the standard worship service, interest groups formed, and ‘select’ choirs established, to keep church appealing. This is not to say members weren’t serious about following God, but they were made to feel it is supposed to be easy to do so!

Many of the long-term parishioners, some upwards of 35 years in attendance (since I was born!), have since left. Including me. I did not wish my place of worship to be another political, competitive, politically-correct—which is typically NOT religiously correct and doesn’t allow for challenging sin(!), overly diverse (to the extent of losing all tradition), and “ultra-liberalized” structure, organized to be fun to the extent of missing the point of saving yourself from the evil-doings that you confront. Shucks, why even worry about your conscious or the state of society if anything and everything can be justified as acceptable or tolerable?

Pastors are being excommunicated for not following rules and church guidelines. The now ex-pastor Dale Fuschak (AZ) had charisma, and making church fun is what got him in trouble. My own church has suffered a major decline in the loyal membership; those who seemed to be that collective ‘family’ of positive and spiritual-minded persons I knew I could look up to and feel encouragement from for so many years—the formative years—of my life. I felt betrayed by them, that they did not stand up against “modern thinking” to keep our little church holy and sanctified.  They accepted "liberalism".

Many churches, the major religions, were not gaining new membership for a studied period of time--the very trend they had hoped to turn around by appealing to the "Hip-Hop Generation" they wanted to attract! (citation). Just exactly how far back did this all begin to happen? Well it’s been more than 23 years that I’ve personally witnessed the liberal trend at the church I choose to no longer attend. I am sure that the turn from reverent worship in my church didn’t help me become anything but more skeptical about the good nature of humankind--and liberalism.

Angela Peters, TPM