An Open Letter,
Dear Christian Stronghold Baptist
Church, Men’s Ministries, Pastor Reverend Doctor Willie Richardson; &
Brother Harry Ruff. . . . . . . ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.
From New Member, Mr. Tracy Charles Gibson,
June 29th, 2018 Friday, & Saturday June 30th, 2018
A Letter written to Christian
Stronghold Baptist Church upon my joining that church a week prior and
preparing to take membership classes this week.
I hope & Pray you are well & in great spirits. I lost
your e-mail address, name & phone number. I wanted to make a few things
clear before I even attend the first class for membership at Christian
Stronghold. I Am a gay brother & I still LOVE Christ. I do not consider
being Gay a sin. While I said before your congregation that I was a
``Sinner’’ I know for sure that sin & the concept of sin is used to make
churchgoers feel uncomfortable & guilty when in fact church is a place
where churchgoers should & MUST be open to being & feeling as their
true selves, not made to fit into something they are not & will never be. I
joined your church because GOD led me there not to challenge you or be
adversarial, different or difficult. I LOVe the Lord as You do, but I
don’t feel or think GOD is a harsh or evil GOD who sits perfect on high and
judges everyone & is , blameless & cold. GOD is open-minded, LOVing,
caring & has many purposes. His or Her major purpose is to save our
precious earth [ and as much of humanity, wild life, and animals as possible
for as long as possible.] God has made it clear to me that one of the
major threats to His or Her earth is having way too many people on this earth.
We cannot feed clothe, employ, & care for the people who are on the earth
now -- let alone the number of People who will be here when the number of
people on this earth doubles in 30 years or so. This is why GOD wants me to
attend your church -- to explain these things to present-day Christians.
The earth
cannot sustain so many people. Some straight Black men go around like a male
Peacock with their chest out strutting when they have fathered 9 or more
children. [ I’m talking about Black men who are financially, socially, and politically
responsible, and planned to have such children with a married woman who they
are married to themselves.]. GOD does not want so many children in the
world the way things are now. If that gentleman -- a Black man
-- had only two children & had adopted the other seven, GOD would be
very Pleased with him & his family. The nine new mouths to feed with so
many children in adoption homes & adoption centers is not something GOD
looks on in happyness because GOD knows what a strain on the environment
nine new faces represents. Nine new people to feed is not earth-friendly &
one of GOD’s major goals is to maintain this precious, glorious planet
earth. This is something that most Black Christians don’t understand or
get. The earth must last for another 70,000 years. This is going to be very
difficult with private business ownership of the food industry [ sometimes by
massive White-run corporations who have only the bottom line as their purpose
for existing, not the well-being of womankind and mankind. ] & with
traditional white-run Capitalism in place. These things are not working.
Capitalism still runs over people & governments willie-nil lie to sustain
white illegal domination and has done so for far too long. This White hegemony
and illegal White domination is hurting & killing people --
mostly Black people & other people of color. It will NOT stand as even
billionaire Oprah Winfrey has said on many occasions. You can fight me on this
as much as you want. I know what I’m saying here is GOD’s Way & GOD’s will.
The decent homosexual lifestyle – and believe me there is such a thing, no
matter How your awkward way of thinking feel put off or disturbed by this -- ]
this is something GOD not only condones, but embraces & accepts. First of
all GOD doesn’t want to know about everything we do in our private lives. This
is something the churches & preachers do to make people feel guilty and
keep coming back for repeated salvation sessions called church service. Somehow
the salvation is never reached. Meanwhile, the church continues to take
churchgoers’ money at an alarming rate, all the while buttering on as much
guilt as possible. Even though we have many flourishing Black churches in
Philadelphia, this ``guilt’’ & ``sin’’ based church-going is based in
self-hatred & negativity when GOD wants us all to LOVe ourselves & stop
hating ourselves because none of us are perfect or without some so-called behaviors
that can be better. [ We must read about ethics extensively]. But we don’t need
to judge ourselves or feel guilty because GOD LOVes us & will continues to
LOVe us. The vast majority of People can maintain behaviors that are
relatively respectful, decent, and moving towards GOD’s center—including Black
Gay people.
Like we say at my home church, GOD is LOVe & LOVe is for everybody.
Don’t feel bad because I have a home church
-- Unity Fellowship Christ of Philadelphia --
which meets in the chapel of the Arch Street United Methodist Church at
55 North Broad Street -- Broad & Arch Street, here in Philadelphia
--
at 1:45 P.M. each & every Sunday. The Bible is a guide. It is 2,500 years ole. This country was
enslaving us as Africans just 270 years ago. How can we possibly follow only a book that disrespects women,
seems to hate Gay people and even embraces slavery without questioning it? I
keep telling Preachers & churchgoers alike that GOD is contemporary.
Another thing I say is that one of the worse cases of religious criminality is
to not accept & understand, that GOD
is LOVing, embracing of all of humanity, contemporary, forgiving, about us all
sharing the planet, its resources & its wealth. GOD is not judging, but
humane and evolving. GOD is evolving and has evolved a great deal since the
Bible was given to us. To remain stuck in the Bible is itself not a good thing.
GOD is in each & every bright child’s face when they get up in the morning
& smile innocently in the mirror. He or She is also in all our eyes &
our faces & wants us all to do & be our best. GOD wants us to reject
violence, embrace our fellow humans, & stop judging people. He or She does
not want us to make sense of a book that made very little sense as a workable
resource 700 years ago, let alone in the times we live in today with jets &
the internet. ALL Pastors can never live
in the way it says to live in the ole or new testament. We can honestly come
together & learn from one another without feeling we sit high & judge
womankind & mankind from on high & that we are better than anyone else.
This is the spirit I bring with me to your church. I belong to every good,
LOVing, decent & honest church in the world that has a focus on helping the
down trodden, the poor, the disabled, the helpless, the oppressed and the hopeless.
Churches that are about freedom and justice like Church of the Advocate in
North Philadelphia. I belong to these churches even though I may not physically
attend these churches. I do this because I Am GOD himself & herself as each
of us are. I Am GOD, but no more GOD than anyone else. I also belong to The
Arch Street United Methodist Church, Unity Fellowship Christ Church of
Philadelphia, Beulah Baptist Church, Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, Zion
Baptist Church, White Rock Baptist Church, Mother Bethel Church, Church of the
Advocate & Saint Thomas African Methodist Episcopal Church where I was Christened
at the age of [ one], went to church and Sunday School as a child, & went through confirmation class at the
age of 11, 12 or 13 or so.
GOD put me here for a purpose. He or She also
made sure I am Gay for a purpose. I have many, friends who are socialists &
communists. I sometimes ask them ``If
you don’t believe in GOD [ many of them don’t] why do you keep doing GOD’s
work?’’ To bring fairness, disclosure,
honesty, equality, freedom, justice & a sense of sharing wealth here to our
planet is part of GOD’s work. Many women such as my personal friend Sistah
Cynthia McKinney, the former congresswoman from Atlanta-- have done a much better job at this work than
I have. There are a host of Black men
& Black women including Brother Tony
Montero who do a much better job at working for GOD than I do. Also, Brother
Michal X [ Cord] does mo-better than I do and I look up to these brothers and
sisters… Brother Bilal Qayyum of the
Father’s Day Rally Committee swims circles aound me and I have looked up to Him
for decades. I truly LOVe these Brothers and Sisters. I have a few problems
with what Brother Louis Farrakhan says about Gay People, but I have read about
Him or about the Muslim movement for decades and I highly respect Him, honor
Him and feel He is a mentor and role model for me and many other Black men and
Black boys. If I Am God so are they. Maybe we need a new open, LOVing, moving,
breathing Bible that speaks to all people and does not harshly judge women, Gay
People, and people who have a little trouble doing their best most of the time.
There is space at GOD’s table for all of
us. Gratefully True,
June 20th
& June 30th, 2018, Friday and Saturday.
MR. Tracy
Charles Gibson [ If you have comments on this letter, please call Mr. Gibson at
1 [ 215 ] 823 -- 9985. ]
