Category Archives: Atlanta
COGIC prepares to ‘consecrate’ sexually immoral pastor
ATLANTA – Ignoring an impassioned letter for reform in the nation’s largest black pentecostal denomination, Bishop Charles Blake, Sr and his cadre of fellow Church of God in Christ (COGIC) bishops are preparing to consecrate [Superintendent] Joseph E. Hogan, Jr. as a bishop. In November, Hogan will be promoted and has been selected to allegedly head the “North Central Jurisdiction” comprised of about 30 odd churches siphoned off the Central Georgia jurisdiction after the death of Bishop Chandler Owens.
Sources (whom we cannot identify for fear of retribution) very close to this story told COGIC Abuse Watch the selection of Hogan was a “travesty”.
The right choice?
Billing himself as the “right choice”, Hogan used this video to promote his candidacy for bishop of the church’s Central Georgia Jurisdiction, But after much politicking, legendary COGIC infighting and a vote, he did not win. To pacify him, Hogan was given approximately 30-45 (per his victory speech video) churches out of the 100 to start a new jurisdiction. In the end, politics and bad judgment won.
If the bible says that among believers there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people, what of the widespread sexual immorality among leaders?
Who is this man?
Hogan, pastor of New Life Tabernacle COGIC located in SE Atlanta, is a superintendent in COGIC, a midlevel administrative position generally supervising five or more churches. In the video, Hogan says he has been serving in the Central Georgia Jurisdiction for some 52 years and pastoring 32 years. He has been married 39 years.
A deadbeat gone wild
In 2005, Hogan (then serving as a ranking official under Bishop Chandler Owens (d. 2011), impregnated Sherry Adams, the wife of his assistant pastor, a man who had served with him for some twenty years.
Public records from Clayton County (GA) Superior Court show that Hogan initially denied the child was his, but after a paternity test, he was ordered to pay child support. In 2011, Hogan stopped child support payments and was subsequently sued and arrested. The case was dismissed “without prejudice” which in legal terms means that he could be sued and/or arrested again in the future for the same offense.
An elder who has served for a number of years in the Central Georgia jurisdiction told Report COGIC Abuse that the child Sherry Adams sued Hogan for child support is only one of several illegitimate children. He suggested that Hogan’s sexual wild cards are a result of the lack of discipline by his two former supervising bishops. In his campaign video, posted just five months ago, Hogan only acknowledges 4 children by his current wife. But according to the court documents, the statement is intentional deception.
What does the bible say about men who desire the office of a bishop?
If a man desires the office of a bishop in the Lord’s church, the scriptures are clear and direct in its qualifying stipulations for that man.
The Apostle Paul wrote that if a man desires the office of bishop, he desires a good work. Its important to understand that the office of a bishop while spiritual, is also equally administrative. Thus, “desiring” to administrate (oversee others in organization, supervision) is a good thing. However, because it has serious spiritual ramifications for those under such a person’s supervision and for the body of Christ at large, the prerequisites are intended to prevent unqualified individuals from accessing the office.
Those 16 qualifications are found in 1 Timothy 3rd chapter:
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt at teaching; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; one who ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all dignity. (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) He must not be a novice in the faith, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good reputation with those who are outsiders, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Just by the adultery, lying, covetousness and deception alone, Hogan fails to meet a minimum 4 of the 16 qualifications. Sources also charge that Hogan does not reside with his current wife due to his repeated cases of sexual immorality. Sound familiar?
Doesn’t Bishop Charles Blake know this? If he does, why would he go against the scripture to elevate a man who clearly is unqualified for the office of bishop? If Hogan’s life is out of control now, what excesses will he be able to indulge in once he is given the power of a bishop’s office? For context, Hogan was a faithful disciple of one of COGIC’s most notorious homosexual sex offenders, Bishop John Husband (d. 1991). Incidentally, the church’s current presiding bishop also served as a “youth pastor” under Husband. Are the errors of the past about to resurrect themselves for another Georgia “jurisdiction”?
Warning before a great fall?
COGIC’s stunning disregard of biblical directives in its leadership selection processes has produced numerous high profile embarrassments for the denomination. That’s why COGIC’s former Chief Justice, Bishop Samuel Nesbitt of Jacksonville, FL wrote Bishop Charles Blake a sweeping and detailed letter warning him that the denomination’s habit of allowing sexually immoral men (among other things) into leadership would be its undoing. Strongly suggesting that COGIC was being intentionally deceitful —and hypocritical— against its public proclamations of holiness, Nesbitt wrote:
“Based on my study of (the etymology of the word lying, and relating it to die meaning of the words hypocrite, deceiver and pretender, I conclude that whether the deceit is uttered (orally) or by an overt act, it is a lie. A hypocrite, a deceiver or a pretender may be classified as “a liar in action.” For this reason, we should be careful what we do and what we say. We are also obligated to place persons in nasttions of leadership who meet the moral standards, as prescribed in the WORD, and the standards which the title represents. A person should not be made to think that he is what he is not In Galatians 5:3, St Paul says: “If a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” It is not difficult to see how a deceived person may cause harm to others who may rely upon him to produce that which he is not qualified to perform. As leaders of the Church Of God In Christ, Inc., we are obligated to take every reasonable precaution to see that we don’t place persons in positions who lack the qualifications to produce what the title is known to represent When we knowingly place persons in positions, for which they are not qualified, we may be guilty of making a person think that he is what he is not: That is deceit”
Blake never responded to nor acknowledged the April 13, 2011 letter. Read and download the entire letter.
Hogan specifically thanks Blake and the COGIC “board” for a “unanimous” decision.
This story was cross-posted at COGIC Abuse Watch
Are church gays killing gospel music?
So called gospel music may be on its last stanza according to one Dallas based minister who cites homosexuals in the gospel music industry as one of the main reasons.
Elder G. Craige Lewis of the famed ExMinistries wrote in his blog that compromise, poor quality music, carnality and “copy cat” gospel has deeply impacted what was once a great asset to the church.
“Kirk Franklin posted on his facebook that Gospel Music sales are way down. Wanna know why? I can give you 5 good reasons why, and here we go.
1. Homosexuality – Even the married male gospel singers are suspect these days because they approve of the homosexual ones. They are on the stage with them, they make music with them, they have them singing background and playing instruments for them, so, where are the real men in Gospel Music? How does this affect the sales of Gospel music you may ask? Well, the devil controls the music industry so, his plan is to kill ALL sales of Gospel by merging the gospel with the secular industry. So, as Kirk puts on the pink, and Tonex dances in drag, while Dillard drops it like it’s hot, and Woods openly performs at a lesbian wedding, the devil has a greater plot. The LGBT is getting ready to shine it’s flashlight on the church and it’s gonna catch a lot of these artists and pastor with their pants down. Once they get the goods, they will force these Gospel Artists to come out like Tonex and support Carlton Pearson’s inclusion. Who wants to buy inclusion gospel music? No one, because inclusion gospel music is secular music!”
Pink lip syndrome?
Kirk Franklin’s comments may reflect 2011 sales issues. And then again with his pink lipped “I smile” video images, people may be backing off gay-themed gospel music.
According to Gospelmusic.org, the top 10 markets for Christian/Gospel music in 2008 were Los Angeles · New York · Dallas/Ft. Worth · Atlanta · Philadelphia · Chicago · Washington D.C. · Houston · Washington D.C. · Seattle/Tacoma · Minneapolis/St. Paul
A 2009 article in Eurweb contended sales were up, but concerts ticket sales were down.
Gospel music sells have exploded in recent years. The Christian music industry as a whole sold more than 44.9 million units in 2006 with twenty percent of those sales attributed to black gospel music. Black gospel music has grown to being heard on mainstream radio formats nationally and has a platform few imagined.
Although sales in the genre are up, attendance at gospel concerts have not followed suit. Major artists are struggling to fill seats causing local concerts and national tours to suffer. Some of those tours, backed by major sponsors including the Patti Labelle Tour and the Sisters In The Spirit Tour, have been cancelled abruptly leaving gospel music fans standing in the refund line scratching their heads.
James Walker, Esq., of Walker & Associates, an attorney for some of the biggest names in the business, blames market saturation.“The explosion of gospel music has been a blessing and a curse in some ways for our touring business,” Walker told Gospel News Now. “There was a time when you could only see your Gospel artist once or twice at most a year in a given market, and rarely on television or in a video. With the present billion dollar state of gospel music and the industry as a whole, many of the artists are touring all the time and the feedback from consumers has me very concerned.”
Jamal Bryant having “conversation” with homosexual pastor
Jamal Bryant is hosting a Tuesday night featuring “Conversations” with Dennis Meredith of Atlanta. Its interesting that this flier gives no indication of what the “conversation” is going to be about. If you didn’t know that Dennis Meredith is a backslidden inclusionist who divorced his wife and became a homosexual, you would think this was about what type of suit and tie to wear for Sunday morning service.
Curiously, Bryant also has Brenda Burton there. Burton shared her testimony of overcoming lesbianism on last year’s Lexi Show. Will she really have a voice or is she a prop?
The graphic has been updated with a title: “Homosexuality in the house of God”. See updated copy here. Thanks for letting us know.
Wreckxs n effect: A tale of two messages [updated]
Here are two messages you should hear. See if you can pick out the false one.
UPDATE: Youtube has shut down the site and removed Creflo Dollar’s disgusting (and lie-ridden) video. It was expected that Dollar would use his “world changing” power to keep people from seeing his wreckx n effect sermon.
(5:24) Creflo Dollar telling former members of New Birth they are not welcome at World Changers and to go back to New Birth and Eddie Long.
Partial transcript:
You gonna leave the preacher [Long] for his wreck…. when you done had more wrecks? The Blood will take care of his wreck just like it took care of yours.
I can’t believe that people would LEAVE THEIR PREACHER JUST BECAUSE HE HAD A WRECK.… instead of praying for him.
I mean… that pastor has loved them… has taken care of them… has given to them… he’s done for them… so he HAD A WRECK!
You had some wrecks! I mean… the mercy God showed you but you can’t show none to the preacher?
And then the gossip that’s in the body of Christ over the preacher that had a wreck? He had a WRECK…. here’s the good news.. HE HAD INSURANCE!!
The preacher in the city here, he’s still gonna go to heaven. He’s cleared… he’s alright!
And if you from that church that you know what I’m talkin’ bout and you tryin’ to join here, I don’t want you here! That is my friend! That is my brother in The Lord!
And if you came from there, you get on BACK OVER THERE [New Birth] and do what you’re supposed to be doing. Because he had insurance, and Jesus paid the premium.
(5:26) Following the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, Rev. Carter Colon cries out for people to heed the voice of the Spirit and flee false teachers.
Related:
Creflo Dollar protects his money in Canada
Special h/t to Kevin M. Oliver
Gay churchfest features ‘Sunday Best’ winner LeAndria Johnson
If you are a gospel music idol worshipper, you won’t like this. If you are one of those deceived false converts who believe homosexuals have place in God’s house, you won’t like this either. And finally if you are a fearful of standing for holiness, you definitely won’t like this. Perhaps at this point, you should just exit this story. Despite all the feel good goobley-gook that is called preaching in the contemporary church, GCM Watch apologetically holds up God’s standard. Let God be true and every man a liar.
The homosexual churchfest is back in the spotlight. Each year, you can count on some misguided gospel industry worker to show up to collect a check “minister”. In case you missed previous installments, you can review at your convenience.
- CeCe Winans [b]
- Albertina Walker [b]
- Crystal Aikin
- Daryl Coley and Lecretia Campbell
- Monique Walker
- Dwayne Woods
In short, the storyline goes like this: the gay church people wave money but obfuscate their real agenda. Gospel music industry booking agents, hungry to keep their client in the spotlight and get paid, grab the gay church money. No mention of gay church appearances is made on client’s website. When GCM Watch shines attention on the dirty deeds, managers claim ignorance, gospel music industry workers claim ignorance or feign “ministry”. Gay church stands by and snicker like alley cats. And around and around we go with all the gay church-gospel music drama.
So, here we are again.
We can now add LeAndria Johnson to the list of the fallen ones. Johnson is the “Season 3″ winner of BET’s top money making gospel blackface show Sunday’s Best. Johnson is the second winner of the show to matriculate into the gay churchworld. But is that any surprise that SB is cranking out gay church performers?
Attempts to reach Leandria Johnson (and family) for comment have gone unanswered. A booking agent listed on her facebook site at first affirmed his association with Johnson, then on a follow up confirmation called denied association.
Johnson is listed as singing at the June 22nd consecration of a homosexual bishop at the Vision Church in Atlanta. Johnson should be ashamed and blacklisted from every church door that believes the Word of the Lord. Appearing at a homosexual church event, picking up those foul spirits and then spreading them to unsuspecting people in black churches should be an urgent concern to pastors everywhere.
Can a backslider minister?
If a Christian is in an admittedly backslidden state, why would anyone want to PAY them to “minister”? Minister what? Minister to whom? But at a Brooklyn church in January, Johnson broke down and admitted to the church that she was in no state to be ministering to anyone.
Johnson seemed very regretful that she had even gotten involved in the gospel music industry. Undoubtedly, she’d had a glimpse of the wickedness that goes on behind the scenes…and was influenced by it.
“Pray that my mind stays focused on Jesus … Even after ‘Sunday Best’ I found myself going back to where I had came from … I didn’t think I’d minister again,” she confessed.
“I’ve been holding this in for a long time and I didn’t know how to express myself,” Johnson continued with tears streaming down her face, “I’m tired of turning my back on God … that’s why I ask for your prayers. Please keep me in prayer.”
After that admission, as several women encircle Johnson and pray an unidentified woman takes the microphone and said, “The enemy is after our musicians … and the enemy knows how to send people that just wanna get in to the fame and into the limelight and they’ll let you do what and say what you want. But thank God for some leaders that don’t mind telling you the truth and when it’s all said and done, we’re going to pray until something happens.”
While we hope that she has recovered and is living holy, its 10 steps backwards to legitimize people who are working against the Word of God. If Johnson were serious about living right and ministering to truth to people, she would cancel her appearance at the homosexual churchfest AND call on them to repent.
Does God send his ministers to minister to people who are living in rebellion against him? Of course he does. The question which determines whether God has sent someone or whether someone is just doing a gospel music gig depends the message delivered. God sent Jonah to Nineveh with one message: “repent”! When the occupants of that great city repented with great humility from the least to the greatest, God turned away his judgment. But the gay churchfest is a celebration of sin, not a turning away from sin.
The bible says: let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity (2 Tim 2:9). Its simple if you call yourself a Christian, you should separate yourself from iniquity, not set an elaborate religious ceremony celebrating it. You can see from the gaggle of false prophets, heretics and court jesters attending the ceremony, there’s only one god who will receive any praise from it.
While many people bemoan the presence of homosexuality in black churches, in their music “ministry” and in the pulpit. But the ugly truth can be seen in the nearest mirror. When a person supports a perverted, celebrity cult worshipping show like Sunday’s Best, they are directly contributing to the worst blight of sin on the church in recent history.
Indeed, when seducing spirits gain a stronghold in the church, it is because they have been invited in and allowed to operate.
Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. Rev 2:20
Leandria Johnson performed at TD Jakes so-called leadership conference in March. She also performed at Dorinda Clark Cole’s music conference. If we really want to know why homosexuality and the spirit of perversion is so strong in the church, the blame is squarely at the feet of so called leaders who have opened the doors of God’s house of prayer and made it into a den of sexual perversion.
And when you buy their music and attend their concerts, you by proxy, endorse their sins. Pornography is more than looking at naked images. Too many so called saints are spiritual porn addicts, getting their fix on vicariously through these workers of iniquity.
Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.
Twice the Lemon: CNN anchor pitches defective religious argument
ATLANTA – Newly announced homosexual activist Don Lemon may be adept at reading prompters in front of the CNN cameras, but his cut and paste attempt to smear the power of God is nothing short of juvenile story-telling. In his opinion peice for CNN’s belief blog, Lemon’s argument is biblically flawed with such severe defects, it needs to come with a large “reader beware” label.
Lemon claimed on air that since he asked his interview subjects for honesty, he felt he was required to do the same. There’s one glaring problem with that scenario. None of us asked Lemon to tell us he was having sex with men. Its just not something any decent person is really interested in knowing when you are watching the news. But gay activists need to leverage the strawman somehow. Then too, with a book out, Lemon must manufacture a fair amount of controversy to help book sales along. What better way to do that than take a swipe at deliverance, one of the central tenets of the scriptures. Since the beginning people have called on God in prayer to deliver them, give them freedom from and power over the destructiveness of sin. And with amazing results! Lemon says he tried it, but failed. But just because 10 people go to Harvard and fail, does that mean Harvard is a bad school and no one should go there? Faulty logic, Mr. Lemon.
Its no surprise then that Lemon would fish out a slur (from the same slur cesspool as nigger and faggot) to launch his ill-conceived notion that prayer to God is useless against the APA’s doctrine of unchangeable “sexual orientation”. So who would you believe: Don Lemon or the Bible?
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. James 5:16-18
Its unfortunate that Lemon didn’t use his journalistic training to research and deliver a more mature opinion piece. Instead, he hit the familiar cursory gay church talking points. From My Faith: How I learned to stop ‘praying away the gay’
“By age four or five, I was too young to sexualize my infatuations but I knew that everyone else, including my family and friends, would think it was wrong.
Perhaps it was the conversations I overheard from adults around my hometown of Port Allen, Louisiana, who’d mimic gay people, calling them “funny” or “sissy” or “fagots.”
Perhaps it was Sunday mornings at our Baptist church, where preachers taught that liking someone of the same sex was a direct and swift path to hell. And that if that person would just turn to the Lord and confess his sin, then God would change him back into the person He wanted him to be – a person who only had crushes on the opposite sex.
All of which meant that, from a very early age, I began to think I was dirty and that I was going to hell. Can you imagine what that feels like for a kid who was just learning to read and perform basic arithmetic? It was awful.I prayed the silent prayer for God to change me every chance I got until I started attending college in New York. That’s when common sense began to take hold and I realized that no amount of prayer would change me into something that wasn’t natural to me.
Please God, make me straight
GCM Watch addressed this common prayer fallacy used by “ex-ex-gays” to support their claims that prayer doesn’t work.
The main dysfunction with the “God make me straight” prayer seems to be focus. Prayer has never been about getting God to give us what we want, but rather aligning ourselves with His will. As Jesus prayed, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If the will of God is for man to be holy (Lev 20:7), but an individual prays to be straight, conflict is inevitable. God doesn’t bend to our desires, we must adjust to his will.
How long does a person wait for God to answer before he or she decides that’s enough…and then answer his or her own prayers? Who decides when enough is enough? Again, stories from ex- ex-gays reveal that it wasn’t God who provided an “answer” to their misdirected prayer. Other means were used to “reconcile” the conflict. This dangerous practice can only lead a person into a rejection of God’s will and plan for man. Don Lemon is proof of that.
“With my religious upbringing, I’d had the opportunity to study religious doctrine. But I learned from different perspectives, from Catholic Mass on Fridays to Baptist services on Sundays to vacation Bible school in the summer to Bible study with a Jehovah’s Witness as a teenager.”
With so many divergent doctrinal perspectives floating around in his head, its no wonder Lemon is confused about the bible.
“As I got older I began to realize that all these people and institutions interpreted the Bible somewhat differently. I had a sort of epiphany: the Bible was about the lessons you learned, not about the events or words.
When I became old enough, intelligent enough and logical enough to discern the difference between metaphor and reality, everything changed. I realized that Jonah living in the belly of a whale was a parable written in the same vein as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. saying that he had “been to the mountaintop.”
Neither Jonah nor King had actually been to those places. They were metaphors for lessons for those of us who cared to absorb them.
So many of us, especially in the black community and in churches, tend to think that religious teachings happened word for word as they were written in Scripture. I think that’s naïve, even dangerous.”
Lemon suggests that since people interpret the bible differently, he could come up with his own interpretive version. And guess what? In his version, homosexuality isn’t wrong! But if he can dismiss someone else’s interpretation as “naive and dangerous” solely on the assumption that they see things literally, what makes his version legitimate?
“Imagine if we had allowed Christian doctrines and teachings that supported slavery, segregation and the subjugation of women to pervade our society all the way up until the current moment. What kind of world would that be?
Instead, we got on our knees, just as I did as a little boy, and prayed that slavery, segregation and the subjugation of women would end. In the United States, at least, those prayers have largely been realized.”
If Lemon were honest, he would admit that white religious racists were wrong about slavery, white social alpha males were wrong about women, and white progay revisionists are wrong about homosexuality. By aligning yourself with the latter, youre no better than the former.
There’s really only one thing you can do when you realize you’ve been sold a lemon. Get rid of it as quickly as possible. Then warn others not to get taken by the deception.
