My travels throughout the Middle East, Asia, and most recently Europe have confirmed to me something that I already suspected and my soul knew, but my mind had not yet caught up to -- and that is much of what is branded and proffered as a Christian religion in the West is more culture than actually Christ.
I fear that some of the things that I not only believed, but I also was a part of teaching, was not Christ actually, but culture after all.
As you know, the most segregated place in America is Sunday morning at church. And it is needful for it to be so, in order to solidify and strengthen the status quo power structure.
Also, as you already know, American culture, as it were, is founded on white nationalism. It has snuck into every aspect of society, and most notably religion, where it is most pervasive. Ironically enough most strongly in spaces where they themselves are the targets of the oppression. I remember telling one of my Caucasian friends, "The hardest people to convince that Jesus is not a white man is old black folks." (I will here refer you to Mr. Lynch's 1712 letter "How to Break a Man and Make a Slave," where he famously postulated that once indoctrination is done rightly to the first and second generations, by the third generation the so-called "slave master" need not teach this sort of thing anymore: "they will teach it to their own offspring...and that will have far greater effect.")
I fear that I, unwittingly, aided Mr. Lynch in his diabolical mission. I was an echo, rather than an original voice.
Yesterday, I had the distinct opportunity for the first time to go to a mosque in Europe with friends and witness them worship. This is not the first time that I watched people of other faiths worship, either in here Europe or in Asia, and experience God as they see him, in their way, and in their culture, but this is the first time that I've seen it within this type of context, outside of my former American identity and paradigm.
The first thing I noticed was that other than my time in Jerusalem I have never been in a worship service of any kind that was all men. The energy of hundreds of men gathered in this way, particularly men whose color we are taught to be afraid of, was, I will admit...intimidating. (See, I myself still struggle with the old programming and social conditioning.) In American churches, if you see 20 men for every 100 women that is considered a big achievement. (And the men you do encounter are often not energetically masculine because they have been preached a "Jesus" who is docile and weak -- more on that in another post).
The second thing I noticed was that they were of different "races" in a way you would never see in America. Across the ocean, because of indoctrination and perhaps even self-preservation and self-advancement, they would divide themselves into classes (which you call "races"), namely "black" or "brown" or "Arab" or "white," and they would each have their own "churches" and would each worship with their families in their class structures in those "churches."
The third thing I noticed is that the service was not a service at all as I had expected. There was no "preacher" or "sermon" as it were. They came to worship. A leader led the call to prayer and then after about 10 minutes we left. I felt something was missing. I am used to the man in front being the star of the show. We often say in churches that we come to see Jesus, but really we come to see the man in front.
That man in the front often looks much like the depiction of Michelangelo's cousin who we were taught to worship and to believe was an accurate depiction of Jesus our Lord.
That man often reinforces many of the teachings that Jesus himself would have rejected but is squarely in line with the historical Western pathology (like "Black people are cursed because Ham was cursed" [though scripture never says Ham was cursed, it has been repeated so vociferously that many will swear to you it's there]..."a sign of a blessed life is more money and more things" [some of your pastors even stand in pulpits with French labels like Dior emblazoned across their chest as they teach of Jesus, almost as a walking advertisement for American consumerism]..."Sexual sin will send you to hell" [one pastor, in the Bronx, said to me "sexual perversion, my brother, is the most serious of all sins" -- to which I thought, but did not say, yes perhaps that is true, but did not Christ teach that putting away (divorcing) a women for anything other than adultery was sexual immorality, yet I never heard him or any other pastor in the Western hemisphere preach that text EVER -- why? Because it does not comport with your societal thinking or your social norms. So we reimagine Jesus's teachings and re-package them for our audience and emphasize only the "sins" we feel most comfortable with railing against -- and that will get the biggest applauses and "Amens"]...and my favorite "Bring ye AAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL the tithe into the storehouse" (translation: bring us your dough so we can pay the money changers who we owe at usury rates to pay for this building and other things we've acquired along the way)
And that man is most definitely a MAN. In 2024, still many who call themselves Christians can not hear a woman share the message of God and that pathology has seeped into how they see women in the business arena, how they vote, and who they respect in positions of leadership.
In Paris, at the mosque, standing in the background, and watching hundreds of men of different ethnicities (not "races" because the only race is the human race), bonded by their shared faith, standing shoulder-to-shoulder and falling down on bended knee and outstretched arms in solidarity and complete synchronicity, it suddenly occurred to me: This is what the status quo Western power structure fears. This type of religion can NOT be allowed. This type of religion must demonized and all people who dare subscribe to it.
This type of solidarity would upend the carefully constructed power dynamic (oligarchy) in the United States in 2.5 seconds were it allowed to go unchecked. And this simply cannot be so.
Notably, it's amazing that in the places where the Christian religion --- and I use the word "Christian" charitably --- is the strongest are also the places where there is the most inequity and disparity and self-hatred. Take the Dominican Republic, for instance, which I visited three times last year. I don't think I met one Muslim there. It is a strongly, strongly "Christian" country. One of every four of them have a Biblical name. Yet many of them struggle with strong self-hate.
They are highly attached to American thinking -- I would say even more so than Americans.
They love to be branded (excuse me, I mean wear brands, Western branded). Even more than the typical American teen or young adult. They go beyond just wearing the stuff. They seek to become it. I have not seen many young men in America getting tattoos of Nike or Jordan or Gucci on their body but that is not so odd there in that part of the world.
And as much as they love Western brands, they hate anything that reminds them of a part of themselves they would rather forget. Like Haiti, right across their border and often in their midst. Like natural hair which might be a trend in the States but has NOT caught on south of the border. In fact, me asking some of them where they came from, and suggesting that it was Africa at some point along the way, seemed to offend them. "I'm SPANISH! My family is SPANISH!" they would tell me quickly and often forcefully, to which I thought, but never said aloud, "Spanish...and what else? Because I've been to Spain and rest assured, THEY would never call YOU Spanish." (YOU can barely get a visa to go there to visit for a week vacation with your passport, which shows what THEY think of YOU and YOUR nation, yet you do everything in your power to convince others [and yourself] that YOU are one of THEM. In the end, I guess, THEY don't see YOU as Spanish, just as YOU don't see the Haitians as FRENCH. Language does not an ethnicity make, after all...but anyway I digress...)
Their biggest Enemy is their INNER ME. Self-hatred is a demonic spirit which has presented itself as an Angel of Light. (No judgment because we've all been there.)
And that story, unfortunately, is not atypical. It has played out all over the world in various iterations and divers manifestations.
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And so it has now become clear to me, after having experienced America, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe, what slavery couldn't do, the religion of man did. Where Jim Crow stopped short, your interpretation of Jesus Christ picked up the baton and ran with it.
They used the name of our LORD, the Christ, to further divide people, to reinforce people's degraded sense of self-worth, and to hold in place a structure which continues to cause people to see themselves as grasshoppers IN THEIR OWN EYES.
Finally, I don't seek to change society. I can only change myself, and I make the promise that from henceforth and forever more, I reject and renounce religion of all kinds, in any form, that seeks to hold the people of God in bondage. That, I would submit to you, is not a religion at all. And it is certainly not a GOSPEL.
In fact, it is Jesus our Christ who declared it is the "traditions of men" (religion!!!) that have made God's Word of no effect. (See Mark 7:13)
I promise that as I teach the message of Christ around the world, I will teach it from the view of Christ and not a Western white nationalist American hegemonic ideological paradigm. I reject the pathology that somehow suggests that God is white and that those who worship Him worship Him in whiteness. Because "white"-ness, like "black"-ness is not a race: it is a SPIRIT, and it seeks to disinherit people from their true Godhood. (But more on that later...)
So am I a Christian? Absolutely! Now and always and forever more.
But my religion is Christ and Christ alone.
I salute you with the words of James, the apostle: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)
Here I Stand. I can do no other...
Yours Truly in the Faith,
The Honorable Minister Darrell J Bennett
(PS Please forgive any typos, I write this in transit between nations as I continue my life's work, without the aid of AI or revisionary tools. This is my voice and mine alone. Not an echo...)
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