Controversy…Preachers' where art thou?

I have a problem, a serious, serious problem. There is global concern, rightfully so about the increasingly problematic Ebola epidemic. For those of you that don’t know by now Ebola, a virus with a very substantial mortality rate was first identified in Africa in 1976. For almost all of the last 38 years, the disease was paid little attention and was almost even trivialized until recently, possibly because it is now leaping from isolated African population areas, and is now threatening to invade the sanctity of the rest of the world’s population.
I consider myself, (I happen to be an ole time country preacher) connected a bit more to the spiritual world than the physical world. I wish that more of our Black American so-called spiritual leaders would be less worried about tithes and be concerned about time. The sands of the hourglass are tumbling down literally threatening the African based existence, globally.
American Black men are getting street diplomas making sure that they are accepted into the ‘Penitentiary Universities’ that are spread with impunity from sea to shining sea. These forgotten citizens are welcomed with open arms by a “tarred and feathered” Statue of Liberty into these “Ellis Islands” of hopelessness. The tired are not welcomed, only the poor and the disenfranchised.
There are far more Black prison inmates than college graduates. Health care and wellness in the Black community in most instances is not nearly as effective as in the white communities. African American single mothers shipwrecked in urban deserts, raising wayward children as the yang without the yin are oftentimes forced to dilute the intrinsic values of Black manhood, corroding and eroding the Africana Woman-ism family centered dogma.
There is more social, spiritual and economic pillaging occurring in the Black community than positive partnerships.
On July 24, 2013, Christian Post Reporter Nicola Menzie posted an article on: www.christianpost.com. The article noted that; “Megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes says he has been exploring the possibility of taking his School of Leadership curriculum overseas to Africa and Asia, as the Regent University-powered online program [was preparing] to engage its inaugural class. “We will be sharing some of the curriculum at this year’s [2013] MegaFest,” Jakes told The Christian Post. “We’re also, interestingly enough, exploring providing this same curriculum overseas. So we’ve had some talks with India, we’ve had some talks with Kenya and various places around the world.” As Jakes tells it, the current economic climate makes the leadership school particularly relevant.”
I don’t wish to become preachy or holier than thou, (yes I do) but it is a necessary job and someone has to do it. Bishop T.D. Jakes wrote the highly acclaimed, ‘Woman Thou Art Loosed’ and it became an instant sensation. From that book sprang all sorts of income generating conferences, events, cruises, speaking tours and a myriad of profit not spiritual based activities that only spell mega loot for the mega pastor. Bishop Jakes and his contemporaries have been almost as silent as “church mice” in regards to this current health crisis.
Now that they are needed worldwide and domestically on the front lines of disease and despair where are the “preachers for the people?” At this precarious juncture in our existence tithes need to paid for survival of us as a people, not for decadent self indulgence.
The Holy Bible tells us that Jesus facilitated and welcomed the blind, the sick and the immoral. Scripture goes on to say that the only human behavior that really caused the Son of God to display genuine anger and respond with negative emotion and physical reactions was when he drove the sellers of goods and the moneychangers from the bowels of the church. If the church must be commercialized, we must insist that these mega leaders be driven from these mega venues collecting money perpetually, unless a significant percentage of the mega bucks that they gather are contributed to help Black Americans, Africans and the world to defeat this mega crisis.
An article on pimppreacher.com stated that; ” In every crisis this Country has ever faced someone made a Buck – and churches got richer by preaching “End of Time” non-sense. In actuality every generation has thought that their generation was living in the Last Days – but nothing makes money for church like a real life or death crisis. Someway – somehow a Pastor will connect this outbreak in Dallas to Tithing-and threaten non-tithers with Ebola if they fail to pay up.”
These so-called spiritual liberators have given a new meaning to the old Sidney Portier, Harry Belafonte movie classic; “Buck and the Preacher” because now all that really seems to matter are bucks and the preachers.  In the brothel of some religious cults, the money is not left on the dresser, it is put safely into the collection plate.
At home and abroad, Black men, women, children, mothers and fathers are not only in crisis but Black life and existence as we know it may soon about to be put on spiritual, social, economic and moral life support, with no “ventilators” in sight to keep us functional and alive until we have access to compasses and navigators required to reroute our journey from the road of indifference and dysfunction thereby saving us from the possible destination of “assisted” genocide.
Ebola, Black on Black crime, fatherless households, Black male incarceration, subpar education, drug addiction and drug distribution thou hath been loosed. What is Black America going to do to corral and control these maladies?
 Aubrey Bruce is the Senior Sports Columnist for the New Pittsburgh Courier. Email: abruce@newpittsburghcourier.com Phone: 412.583.6741 Follow him on Twitter @ultrascribe