Judges and Dethroning Bishop Long

In response to the request of several people wanting an explanation (religious, biblical or otherwise) on the video of the coronation of Bishop Eddie Long, we here at Rhetoric Race and Religion will collect responses and place them on our blog. If there are responses you find, please share them with us. Thanks

Confronting the Royal Ideology of Pastoral Authority, Sharing the Gospel Message According to Judges

On Wednesday, Professor Anthea Butler responded to Bishop Eddie Long’s enthronement. Please read her article, for she gives great insight into the cult of the pastor in the black church. First, as a disclaimer, I don’t want to make this just about New Birth or Eddie Long. It’s significant that a religious community is attempting to reach an unreached people group in the U.S.; Black males, no matter, and that a church sees itself as political. However, what I want to deal with today is something no one really likes to talk about, and that is the royal ideology behind the Black Pulpit (well, really, the American Protestant pulpit). Part of the reason why I am afraid of working for a church is the cult of the pastor, the sectarian veneration of preaching leader of a congregation.

Part of this comes from U.S. American theology’s obsession and too optimistic reception of the Monarchy period in Ancient Israel. We like to talk about David who had a heart for God; David, had a heart for worship. Sure, we acknowledge he was wrong for murdering one of his great soldiers and taking his wife, but David’s greatness as king, his reputation as a worshiper over turns that little blemish. What ends up happening is that churches use this ideological gaze in which we look at David, and turn it on the person at the center of U.S. American Protestant worship services: the pastor.
Read the rest here