By Victor Ochieng
There is an up and coming church that’s keen on doing away with the emphasis on money that’s bedeviling many churches we see across the United States. They’ll do this by not taking any money from the members and they’ll also forfeit the tax-exempt status that many churches enjoy. Reason? They want to be free to talk politics without being threatened with taxation issues.
But then there is more to the church’s decision not to put a lot of focus on money. They’re also interested in seeing more Black American men going to church.
“The belief is that by removing the church’s emphasis on money while also addressing political issues that lead to black oppression will enable a greater number of black males to partake,” Johnson said, pointing out that black men are the “least churched demographic in America” and “need of a safe place to be unapologetically black while learning and seeking spiritual truth.”
Johnson, a Georgia-based Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist, is keen on starting the new church in Memphis and will specifically be focusing on roping in more African American men to church. His full name is Jomo Kenyatta Johnson and he’s a co-founder of BLM Savannah. He’ll be starting “the new Christian denomination of house churches,” under the name Church For Black Men, with their services expected to roll out in February 2018.
According to Johnson, the church’s “Sunday Home Meetings” will be conducted in brother’s homes and the congregations aren’t expected to go beyond 25 people.
Johnson is a graduate of Westminster Seminary. After his graduation, he worked in several “predominantly white Presbyterian churches.”
“The reason that black men do not connect with the American Evangelical church is that (the church refuses) to suffer with blacks and, therefore, are unable to communicate in a message by which black men can understand,” Johnson said in a news release that centered on the church. He stated that the Church For Black Men is “not exclusively” for black men, “but primarily black.”
What he means by that is that anyone who isn’t a black male can only come as a guest of a black male in the church.
Johnson gained national fame this past summer after going on a hunger strike to draw attention to suicide.
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