Black Pastors Say Black Lives Matter Is 'Demonic,' 'Shameful' and 'Tragic'
WASHINGTON — A group of black pastors asserted Wednesday that in order to change the impoverished, crime-stricken cultures in America's inner cities, more emphasis needs to be placed on responsibility, education and entrepreneurship instead of blaming the police for problems facing troubled African-Americans.
Bishop E.W. Jackson from The Called Church in Chesapeake, Virginia, and other black ministers from the organization STAND (Staying True to America's National Destiny) gathered at the National Press Club to announce the launch of Project Awakening, a private-sector, church-centered, comprehensive plan for the recovery of America's inner cities that focuses on teaching children they have options and responsibilities in life.
While the pastors detailed how the project aims to build relationships between churches, police, the black community and businesses to create cultural renewal, entrepreneurial awakening, and technical education for inner city children, the ministers did not refrain from chastising the Black Lives Matter movement for propagating a "demonic" message that does not offer a solution but simply puts police officers in harm's way.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
With many in the Black Lives Matter movement quick to silence anyone who dares say that "all lives matter," Jackson, who is the founder and national president of STAND, explained at the press conference that such rhetoric only makes racial matters worse in America.
"Let me speak with this admonition. I don't know everything they are saying, I know what I heard. With that proviso, what I have heard has not been good. What I have heard, to me, is divisive and demonic," Jackson stated. "We as Christians know that God created all of us, all of our lives matter, including the lives of unborn babies, they matter too. When you have people saying, 'you can't say all lives matter, we are not going to hear that,' that tells me there is something very, very wrong there."
