STRUGGLE SESSION: GA Megachurch Pastor Suggests Racial Apologies “House To House, Family By Family”
(WokePreacherTv) Paul Richardson, “Executive Pastor Of Ministry” at West Ridge Church in Dallas, Georgia, leads a liturgical lament with activist Terence Lester, a “Local Missions Consultant” to the church, in May of 2020
PAUL RICHARDSON: We want to take a few moments to just say honestly how we feel. That’s what a biblical lament is, to be naked before God, to become totally transparent. So I’d like to invite you to go first, Terence. How are you feeling today with all that’s going on?
… TERENCE LESTER: Well, it was hard to drive to church this morning. I haven’t slept and had a good night’s rest in a long time…I’m exhausted, literally. I lament the fact that I have to be exhausted in this country because of racial trauma. I lament the fact that every time I speak about race I have to deal with trolls…I had a white pastor literally DM me…snapping on me, cursing at me, sending me articles…other people on the social media platform had to tell this pastor that he was being inconsiderate.
...I lament the fact that I have to deal with psychological trauma from racial injustice. I lament the fact that I have white brothers and sisters who would rather stay in denial then use their voices to correct racial injustice. I lament the fact that I had to see a black jogger get murdered and have that captured and then have white friends ask me, “Was that really racial?” when I’ve never seen a white person be murdered and have that imagery plastered all over national television.
I lament the fact that a white woman called a police officer on a Harvard graduate in a park. I lament the fact that CNN black reporter or commentator got arrested on national television, even before the persons who killed black people. I lament the fact that a DoorDash delivery person who is black was held at gunpoint because he was considered not to fit in that community.
I lament the fact that a knee that people got angry over because a black athlete started taking a knee to protest racial injustice, but it was a knee that took the life of a black man on national television. I lament that.
(Editor’s Note. Then comes the 1-2 punch from the pastor, overcome with guilt and seeking to lay sin at the doorstep of his congregants. If you’r pastor ever tries to pull this with you, kick him to the curb of flee the city, lest they become pillars of salt)
… RICHARDSON: Yeah. Yeah. You know, Terence, today the reason why I wanted us to do this lament together is because I’m just brokenhearted. And I’m broken for what I see in our country. I’m broken and I’m lamenting the ways that people have even come to me and continued to deny that there’s an issue in our country and in our churches. There’s a pastor somewhere who came after you who’s standing to preach today. That’s not the church that Jesus died for.
Terence, I’ve thought a lot about what I’m about to say. I want to say I’m sorry. I want to say I’m sorry for the ways that, in my past, that I have been a denier of this. That there’s still racism in the body of Christ and in our country. Terence, I can’t apologize on behalf of the church. I’m not a senior pastor. You and I know how our pastor feels about this. He’s made it clear he wants to see biblical reconciliation.
I’m not an elected official. I can’t apologize on behalf of a community or a country. What I can do is apologize on behalf of my family. And maybe that’s what we need to do. House to house, family by family, person by person. Say, “Man, I’m sorry. This is not right.” I could write a bad check and nobody’s gonna put their knee on my neck. I went for a jog in my neighborhood after dark the other night and I don’t have to be afraid.
And what I want is a world and a country, and it begins with the body of Christ, with brothers in Christ. What I want is a world full of biblical oneness and reconciliation and a reminder that we are not from a kingdom of America or from a kingdom of race. We are a part of God’s kingdom. We serve a greater king, the greatest king. We have a greater savior who is over all of these things.
And I pray that he would lift us up out of this and that we one day would finally know what it means to be the answer to Jesus’s prayer in John 17. That we would finally be one. That’s my prayer today as we lament this together.
Editor’s Note. This post was created by @wokepreachertv and written on his YouTube page. We cut down his video even further, but he was the source.
About Author
What’s the issue? Black people are among God’s chosen peoples. This Black man is without sin. Are you mad that whites needs to answer for the sin of racism? This blog is an example of white rage
No one, even you, Johnny, is without sin. No one.
Chosen people? Without sin? What? For some unfathomable reason, you capitalize ‘Black’ but not ‘white’ when referring to people? Did you learn that in some kind of advanced woke English class? So many questions…
Johnny, as usual, your every utterance is unbiblical and frankly ignorant. I suggest you stop before embarrassing yourself further.
insert tiny flags of various countries here
You torture your own reasoning to vindicate on one hand and condemn on the other. Do to others what you want done to you. This is not just the rule for the white man, but black also, to wit, all of humanity. Pain and suffering is the lot of everyone. Pride is the divider.
Again, people calling for the end of racism making things all about race and segregation. Race relations were worlds better before any of this BLM stuff started. All it’s done is give a voice to the racists in the liberal camp. I have a few black friends and not one of them has made a big deal of any of this. Any church that is making this as big a deal as this, people need to leave it. Either the church is led by a bleeding heart liberal or someone who is disingenuous and is just looking for headlines to appear loving. Either way, it’s not a good look.
Is racism bad? Of course it is! But, it cuts both ways. You can’t have people crying racism while attacking another race. Obviously, it just shows they haven’t learned anything. People shouldn’t be labeled by the color of their skin. No matter what color they are. If people would stop talking about race, then racism would go away. But, of course, the left wants us to keep talking about it because they crave division in society. They want this country destroyed. People are just too stupid or blind to see it.
Biblical oneness will never be achieved in this manner. Even a cultural oneness cannot be achieved in this manner. Oneness is not the goal of critical theories.
Pastors using CRT/I to try to unite their churches are either ignorant of it’s tenets or they are liars who are denying the gospel.
Progressives play this play all the time and conservatives, always on defense, never figure it out.
Their playbook is to choose a topic, say lgbt stuff, prance into a church, and bold faced demand change in this doctrine. Any resistance is maligned in the loudest voice across all social media as the church being haters, and “hung up on sex.” Keep haranguing and harassing until you get change. Don’t let up, don’t hesitate to make it personal, destroy anyone who speaks up. Or the race thing- March into the church loudly claiming victim hood, demanding changes in doctrine, power, apologies, reparations, whatever you want, shaming everyone, etc. If anyone says racism is not a problem in our church or they are personally not a racist, loudly proclaim them to be the problem. All denials of the problem are the problem. Keep it up until conservatives are groveling at your feet for you to shut up. Don’t stop until you have victory.
They will be back for the SBC in Anaheim next year. And the year after that, and after that. Proposing resolution after resolution for the changes they want, CRT doctrine, gay clergy etc. They will simultaneously push incrementalism and compromise while loudly claiming it’s so disappointing. When they have victory they will announce that the issue is settled, we voted on that and it’s done, can’t re-visit that issue any more. It was never settled until they got what they wanted. It’s unsettled until they win, then it’s forever settled.
Their playbook is simple. 1. Use organized social force to create a problem, in church, society, etc. 2. Personally ridicule, humiliate and destroy anyone who denies the problem. 3.demand radical changes. 4. Conservatives will always offer incremental changes. 5. Accept the incremental change while acting like an incremental change is a huge disappointment and sacrifice. 6. Start over. This is how they pound incrementalism into society and into churches year after year, issue after issue, doctrine after doctrine.
Progressives are demonic. Conservatives are blind idiots who fall for it.
Their end goal is to destroy the doctrines of sin and the atonement, to destroy acknowledgment of what Jesus did. Satan hates Jesus. The goal is worldwide marxist Liberation theology under one head, say the pope, or the UN human rights commission. All denominations more or less the same, with different outward appearances, from ancient rituals to rock music, but the same doctrine. The only sin is denial of liberation theology, framed as the denial of equality. There is no atonement for that. You deserve destruction, and you will get it. Usually they enjoy making you beg and grovel first, then you can be held up as a symbol of victory for them. Too many conservatives continue to accept their trap to “dialogue.” Don’t engage with them, it’s a trap. You’re being set up. Conservatives need to wake up and realize that these are demonic forces using flesh and blood to destroy the church of Jesus Christ, same thing they’ve been doing for 2000 years.
Well said, Kitty, and very true.
Except these days, it is not a stranger prancing into church and accusing, it is pastors. Pastors that have national prominence, pastors that we once learned so much from, quiete a blow! The pastor-theologians we trusted and learned from have turned on Christians, they speak as total strangers, their ethics are wordly. Seems like a pastor-theologian cabal, out to destroy the church.
You’re right Nocomunista. It’s hard to describe the sense of loss and betrayal I feel when reading about pastors who I thought were faithful, people from whom I learned the faith in the past, men who’s books I’ve read and sermons I’ve listened to. It’s truly mind boggling how they just blew away when pressure was applied. Or they were always just kind of dumb and could be easily duped by political argument and I didn’t know it. David Platt stands out as one in the news recently but there are several others.
*whose* books
I’m sorry the pastor is a moron, and the white apologists haven’t the sense to realize they are dupes. Apology accepted?
Well, I find many things wrong in that situation. Pastors cannot respect God and dress better; they are promoting lies as there is no such thing as race. God said there wasn’t and science has proven that true; these men have no idea what justice is or how to apply it; nor do they know how to trust God.
White people have nothing to apologize for when they are accused of being a racist simply because they are white. YOu only apologize when you know you did something wrong and are sorry for doing it. not because you are sorry you were caught. We wrote on justice yesterday at theologyarchaeoloy
“ executive pastor of ministry”, “ activist local missions consultant “, I searched my king jimmy bible and could not find any of these positions in the church. Should I try the message bible?
@howard maybe it’s in The Passion Translation
This is utter nonsense
Cool. The passion translation is endorsed by Bill Johnson. Probably also mentions grave sucking.
I am a White Anglo Saxon Protestant.
God saw fit to create me White.
I make no apology for being White.
I refuse to feel guilty for being White.
I refuse to apologise for being White.
Anyone who has a problem with that has my permission to lick a used flyswatter.
I’m sick and tired of all this over-fixation on skin color. It’s stupid.
“was the motivation really racial?” is a legitimate question. It’s stupid to assume everything bad that happens to anyone and everyone is automatically “racially” motivated, if their skin happens to have more melanin.
“I’ve never seen a white person be murdered and have that imagery plastered all over national television” is a blatant lie unless Mr. Lester has never watched the news in his life. But the media does indeed tend to ignore the murder of whites. One might argue that if the media had done their job with respect to Tony Timpa, then George Floyd might still be alive. But nobody cared about Tony Timpa.
Typical of the critical theory manufactured race to the bottom. It quickly becomes a contest to see who can be the most ridiculously stupid, only superseded by who can most quickly abandon and reject God’s Word.
What does God’s Word tell us? It says God looks on the heart. He does not look at the skin color. And neither should we.
This is not the church that the Lord Jesus Christ is building. They are tax exempt businesses. These people are deceived. God might open their eyes.
As someone who went to public school in Atlanta and had a black teacher teach me what racism was about as she said evil things to this white girl, where is my apology? Oh, I forget. Their racism only runs one way. This just angers me to no end. I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta and know we all sin. No race or person is better than another.