Spiritual Chitlins…

We are about half way through Black History Month.  We have celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday (most of us). And in light of that, I want to ask you all-blacks and whites alike-a question.

ARE YOU REALLY FREE?

No, not from racism.  Anyone with two eyes and two ears can honestly see that we still have a long way to go before racism is totally eradicated in this country.

No, what I want to know is are you free….FROM RELIGION????

During slavery, the slaves had a very poor diet.  According to several writings from actual slaves, a slaves’ diet included molasses, chitlins, hamhocks, corn meal, Indian corn, black-eyed peas, very little vegetables or fish, and some birds.  Whatever their masters in the plantation did not want or threw away, THAT is what the slaves consumed…them and their children.

I got this analogy of the church being likened to a plantation during slavery from my friends over at the Church Folk Revolution (thanks, btw!).

As I sat and pondered on this for a while, the similarities between the institutionalized church and the plantations where slaves were oppressed became more obvious to me.

Just like the slaves on those plantations starved and were overworked, oppressed,  and poorly fed, so are congregants who go to these churches (sad to say, mostly the congregants who go to predominantly black congregations) not being properly nourished.  They are fed spiritual chitlins and hog, hammocks and throwaway scraps.

A bunch of recycled messages/scraps from the tables of famous preachers.  Recycled over and over again.  That’s how religious clichés and old prophecies such as ‘this is your season’ or ‘we are in a shift’ become so popular….they are nothing more than spiritual chitlins.  (Now, I know there are some of you that love chitlins…but the fact is that chitlins is nothing more than hog guts.  Its waste.  Its disgusting and have absolutely NO nutritional value.)

Well, just like chitlins in the natural are stink, have no nutritional value…even though they are quite fulfilling and satisfying.

So are MOST of the teachings that go forth in the institutionalized church are nothing more than spiritual chitlins.  They STINK in the nostrils of GOD, they yield NO spiritual or eternal value…even though they do serve to appease the hearers…albeit temporarily.

Being from New Orleans, I have family and friends that LOVE chitlins.  So I can hear some of your responses to this post…”There’s nothing wrong with eating chitlins!  They are GOOD!”

Well, according to the NY Health Department, eating chitlins (which are nothing more than a pig’s small intestines!) can present dangers to one’s health.  There is a risk of contracting E. Coli, Salmonella, and what’s known as yersinia, a bacterial infection that causes diarrhea, fever, and severe abdominal cramps that feel like appendicitis.

Not to mention what the long-term effects are of such a diet. Chitlins are high in cholesterol, which can lead to high blood pressure and heart disease.

Just imagine:  slaves had no choice but to eat chitlins as long as they remained on the plantation, as long as they were slaves to ‘massa.’  They ate chitlins because that’s all they had to survive.  It was either eat chitlins or starve…

But people who are ‘slaves’ to the institutionalized church system-religious plantations, I call them-THEY have a CHOICE!

Your pastor/massa is serving you SPIRITUAL CHITLINS every week…and because it’s traditional, and it tastes good to you, you don’t see anything wrong with it!

Oh sure.  There is a stench in the air…some have gotten used to it, it’s been there so long.  Just like when you’re in the kitchen, preparing those vittles…after awhile, you don’t even smell the funk anymore…

There is that stench in the air…but it’s only noticeable to those who walk up in your building for the first time.  The funk hits them in the face as soon as they enter the doors of your church.  Its slaps them in the face!  And while they are holding their noses almost wanting to puke, fanning their faces, trying to figure out ‘What IS that smell?’ You are sitting there, waiting on your next serving of SPIRITUAL CHITLINS!

And then you get offended when those visitors don’t come back anymore!

We hear folks talk about nobody’s getting saved in church anymore, that saved folks are just migrating from church to church, house to house.  I have to agree with this: except what’s happening is that saints/slaves are starving.  They are tired of their steady diet of spiritual chitlins and hammocks, smothered in spiritual cornbread and molasses.

The chitlins have passed for the meat of the word, and the pastors/massas have made it palatable and tasty for you by including hefty side orders of spiritual cornbread and molasses, to sweeten it for you.  To make the so called ‘meat-of-the-word’ they are peddling go down easier.  Just like when mama used to make that corn bread with that red beans and rice…a lot of times, she wouldn’t even use rice.  She would just eat the beans with corn bread, in her own words, to make the beans go down easier!

Pastors/Massas for generations has gotten away with feeding the slaves, oops…excuse me, saints, chitlins, greens, red beans and corn bread.  And the saints saw nothing wrong with it for a long time.

But as more and more slaves/saints start getting spiritually sick from their steady diets of death and scraps, more and more of others slaves are taking a stand.  In their minds, their ‘stand’ is to go to another church.  It is a major accomplishment in the minds of those saints ‘who smell the funk’ in their old churches for them to pick up and move somewhere else.

But what they fail to realize is that THAT pastor/massa where they migrate to have the same funk on their plantation/in their church, too.  Some pastors/massa-when they find out that you were ‘Jakes’ or Longs’ ni_ _ _ _ , or belonged to another church but left the ‘wrong way,’ i.e. you didn’t get pastor/massa’s permission to leave or you didn’t get ‘released,’ then they tell you ‘You better go back where you came from!’

(How many of y’all remember Creflo telling Eddie Long’s congregants who went to his church after the scandal to go BACK to New Birth when the grits started hitting the fan?)

Creflo even called them NEGROES at about 1 minute and 40 seconds or so into this video!

Wow.

The above video looks SO much like a scene out of the movie ROOTS when a slave ran away to another massa’s plantation who seemed to be nicer or kinder to the slaves.  And that massa would rebuke that slave for running away to his plantation-that slave might get a lashing or two before being returned to his original master.

It’s so time to WAKE UP!

If you go the institutionalized church, you are in SLAVERY!

And ALL the pastors/massas (YES, YOUR PASTOR, TOO!) work together to KEEP you that way!

What a sad state to be in, especially as so many celebrate Black History Month, claiming to be free.  Yet, in actuality, you are yet STILL SLAVES, feeding on SPIRITUAL CHITLINS!

If you want to get off the plantation once and for all, and get fed some spiritually sound and healthy food, all you gotta do is start walking.