(Bishop Eddie Long and his "spiritual sons")
“I have never in my life portrayed myself as the perfect man,” Bishop Eddie Long said to his flock at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta Sunday morning in response to the allegations from four former church members who implicated the bishop in a sexual scandal. “But I’m not that man.”
His followers cheered at his performance, but failed to realize that in reminding them of his imperfection, Long was preparing them for what I think he knows will eventually make it into the light: that he did, at the very least, have consensual sexual relations with his four (and possibly more) young, male accusers, if not in the coercive fashion that they have alleged.
It’s a crafty Hail Mary that I’m sure Long hopes will grant him the leeway he needs to kinda-sorta admit to his crimes, while gaining his congregation’s forgiveness and maintaining the massive wealth he’s accumulated at their expense—the latter being the most crucial. It’s a cynical ploy, but one that unfortunately has a superb success rate. What he’s banking on is that his false humility will force his congregation to accept his proposition or face the prospect of becoming hypocrites themselves: As the mythology purports, forgiveness, particularly for someone of Long’s stature, is viewed as a God-like quality, quintessentially Christian. Literally then, in the eyes of the church, Long can do no wrong—or at least, no wrong that cannot be forgiven and forgotten. (This is the same institutionally sanctioned mentality that absolves, and has absolved for years, pedophile priests in the Catholic Church.)
Or perhaps Long doesn’t even have to engage in anything nearly so Machiavellian: Maybe most churchgoers simply can’t admit to having been wrong about Long because if they were wrong about him, then what else could they have been wrong about: Church? The Bible? Christianity? God?
In this sense, religion and politics are virtually indistinguishable: The facts are irrelevant (or at least malleable). It’s all about the performance, about charm and charisma and what people can be persuaded to believe. It’s also about an appeal to ego, about corroborating the preferences and prejudices of the audience, even if one doesn’t possess a personal conviction in the views expressed.
Despite what religious leaders say, the end goal isn’t about community uplift or peaceful coexistence or equal rights for all or even a blissful afterlife. Quite the contrary, their actions clearly indicate that the aspiration is to generate conflict as a means to secure personal power and wealth right here on Earth. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Bishop Long is possibly the most homophobic preacher in the United States, but makes $3 million a year, lives in a $1.2 million mansion and drives a car worth $250,000, all of which are made possible through the support of his mostly poor to middle-class congregants? Homophobia is just the latest hustle. And just like the misogyny and racism before it, it’s quite lucrative. It’s the wealth-generating aspect that allows closeted homosexual and bisexual preachers to reconcile the contradiction of their public pronouncements and their private exploits. Jehovah, it turns out, is just a spiritual means to a financial end.
Long’s homophobia, alleged closeted homosexuality and alleged duplicity aren’t even the most egregious aspects of this situation. It’s his alleged manipulation of the vulnerable young men who trusted him (some of Long’s supporters believe that all four boys, and anyone else who comes forward, are part of some devilish plot to discredit the bishop and prevent him from doing “God’s work”). It’s that someone like Long not only found voice, verve and protection in the black church, but also a large, abominable audience of kindred spirits--25,000 strong. In other words, the most horrible aspect of this is that he simply tapped into something that’s been true for longer than we care to admit: Nothing galvanizes the black community like the demonization of LGBT individuals. Nothing makes us give our tithes more freely (even when we don’t have them to give). Nothing makes us feel more righteous and superior. Nothing.
This is a point that cannot be denied, but will not be grasped by Long’s supporters or people like them. No, to people who prefer that others do the thinking for them—people who reject facts in favor of faith, who love fable but abhor reality—what I say sounds like blasphemy and they absolutely refuse to hear it. Instead, they will bury their heads in the ground like ostriches and soothe themselves with the sounds of their own voices: “No matter what he’s done, I support my bishop.”
This is the double tragedy of humankind: Someone will always offer Kool-Aid and someone will always drink it.
Some Son of Baldwin readers asked why I felt worthy to “judge” Bishop Long and how I could be so certain of his guilt when the trial has yet to begin. Honestly, I’m not judging Bishop Long, simply measuring his actions against his words. This is a man who used his wealth and influence to make the lives of LGBT individuals more toxic, more oppressive, more wretched and more deadly while allegedly having oral sex with the young men in his charge. As a member of the LGBT community, I have a right to name my oppressor, call attention to the evil he’s perpetrated against me and call him on his hypocrisy.
And as far as his guilt or innocence: How many times does this exact same scenario have to play out on the national stage before we can say that there’s a pattern, before we can say, with relative certainty, that the biggest homophobe in public is the freakiest homosexual in private?
The defense of Long by individuals who identify as LGBT is perplexing, if unsurprising: Self-hatred and inadequacy are difficult illnesses to overcome, particularly when it’s believed that there’s some divine justification for them. Nevertheless, my question to the Son of Baldwin readers who are so concerned with me judging the bishop is:
Where was your indignation when he was judging and crusading against the entire LGBT community?
Some believe I should allow Long the opportunity to redeem himself. As far as I'm concerned, there is no redemption for him. Even if the numerous allegations prove false, even if he pays for the silence of those young men, there’s still the matter of the incredibly vicious, hateful and irretrievable energy he put into the universe, a force that he cultivated and nurtured, so that it would go forth into the world, to grow and prosper, like a contagion, forever and ever.
Amen.