AT2W

Photo courtesy of thewordnetwork.org

AT2W’s Take: Bishop Bloomer’s Interview with Obnoxious TV’s William McCray [Part 2]

Now, here we are onto Part 2. We want to discuss the actual interview part of the meeting between Obnoxious TV’s William McCray and Bishop George Bloomer.

We will state this again: We are taking time to discuss this because we know that it is important to deal with some of the issues that were brought up. Even though William McCray is a color individual, he had some very warranted statements that need to be addressed.

In the beginning of the interview, Bishop Bloomer starts off by asking McCray to give the first word that comes to his mind as he responds to the many initial words that were thrown at him. Bloomer seemed to do so in some way to ridicule the interviewee which we realize at the end of the interview, that is exactly what he had planned to use against him. Let’s not forget what we discussed in Part 1. Bloomer and his pastor friend Scott stated the interview should be done to ‘change the game’ and confront this devil of a man they called ‘a self appointed watchdog’ for the church. It all sounded to us like Bloomer was planning to shred McCray to pieces in this interview for merely discussing a pending lawsuit against him on his blog. We will see whether he was successful.

Now, as Bloomer goes on to throw out as many words as he can to get a response from McCray, this was to set the tone of the interview, says Bloomer. It was interesting to see Bloomer sit back in his chair with notepad in hand and reading glasses hung over his nose as if he was conducting a psyche session. Clearly, to us, this was a tactic in order to get McCray right where he wanted him in this interview.

Bishop Bloomer makes sure to discuss the actual reason for the interview and then he admits that the article literally blew up his Twitter and email inbox with messages concerning the article on McCray’s Obnoxious TV blog. While they both laugh from time to time about how the response to the article was utterly enormous, Bloomer states one thing that was disturbing. He tells McCray that some people responded to him stating ‘do you want me to handle him or will you do it?’. This talk went over our heads for a split second until we realized this was threat. What Bloomer was doing was allegedly intimidating McCray into believing Bloomer had alleged ‘handlers’ who would ‘take care’ of him for exposing Bloomer’s apparent pending lawsuit to the world on a blog. So, if we can, it sounded like an alleged threat to us which appears to be gangster style and street talk. We are not sure if this is disturbing to anyone else but just the thought of mentioning it, sheds some serious light on the character of this pastor and where his alleged thoughts are. Definitely not appealing to the body of Christ whatsoever.

While Bloomer goes on with this ‘interview’, McCray is literally laughing much of the time at Bloomer and his attempt to criticize and ridicule him for writing an article. Bloomer continues on by admitting what he is about to say is wrong but says it anyway. He states he has spent 30 years building his ‘brand’ in ministry and it was not nice being attacked in an article by McCray. Well, though he admits comparing his ministry to a business model instead of a place to heal the sick and save souls from the pits of hell, he goes on to brag about being a ‘public figure’. Now, McCray as obviously willing to address anything, tells Bloomer that he is a public figure and should expect what comes with celebrity status of being a megachurch pastor. McCray rips into Bloomer by stating the problem with all these big shot preachers is they have moved from taking care of the sheep to living large and that though some megachurch pastors may not admit it, for obvious reasons, they have created themselves a life of lavish luxury and yes, celebrity status. This we all have to admit is the problem of the modern day megachurch.

Bloomer moves on to state he thinks he deserves an apology and McCray quickly laughs and states “I don’t think so”. McCray mentions that he sees Bloomer as a thug with ‘thug swagger’. Though Bloomer admits he used to be a thug who sold drugs and (he has been seen allegedly bragging that he once did), McCray confronts him about how he punched a man in the face in his church. Bloomer appears annoyed by the mentioning of this and admits he did do this. While McCray laughs in his face and asks: ‘Who does this?”, Bloomer states: “Someone who needs Jesus”. This, we thought, set the pace of this interview into motion. McCray was able to, again, bring the focus off himself and the blog post on the table for discussion, to do the church a real favor and expose this pastor and his ‘colleagues for who they really are.

McCray now gets his opportunity to address Bloomer’s “spiritual father” Bishop Eddie Long and the allegations against him. What we loved about how Bloomer allowed McCray to say all he wanted on this subject, McCray touches on a really serious subject. Just as any person who can clearly see that Bishop Eddie Long has dug a hole for himself and his skeletons, he definitely had the wrong type of relationships with some young men. As McCray states that single mothers join churches to receive guidance on raising their children, they do naturally tend to lean on the pastor for assistance with this. He contends that the man or woman of the cloth is expected to be an upstanding, respectable and decent individual in the church they represent, but then some pastors somehow get away from the cross and into some indecency with a child or children in their congregation. McCray is clearly disturbed about this and insists that the young men that Eddie Long allegedly had inappropriate sexual behavior with are telling the truth. McCray makes the very point we made about what Bishop TD Jakes stated on CNN with Don Lemon. Jakes made it clear on the show that since the young men (in Eddie Long’s case) were of legal age in Georgia, it was better than 8 or 10 year old boys bringing notice to sexual misconduct. What!

Now Bloomer is making a point to belittle McCray by asking him about his personal life. We took it as a means to ridicule McCray but even as Bloomer tried to do so, McCray stayed on the issues of homosexuals in the church. We also found it interesting that he stated that the church (Bloomer and his colleagues), pay gospel artists big money knowing full well, many of them are ministering to the body of Christ as homosexuals and spreading that spirit in the atmosphere. Bloomer asks McCray if he thinks about people’s children wh

The last important thing we wanted to mention was while Bloomer tried a ‘tired attempt’ to make William McCray look small for discussing his business in a blog post, McCray called him out when Bloomer made a point to ‘throw out’ on the late Zachery Tims. Bloomer stated he never wants to be found dead in a hotel room and McCray went in on him for making that statement. Though Bloomer tried to clear up his interpretation of what he meant, we do believe the viewing audience saw it for what it was: a cheap hit against a minister who died mysteriously in a hotel room in New York.

It was important to us to discuss how we felt about the interview because even though Bloomer thought he was ‘changing the game’ by attacking the enemy, he, in our opinion, only used cheap hits against McCray in order to show him who was in charge. While Bloomer went on to try and dissect McCray’s intentions, his gall to expose his personal business and other things, was in many ways pure gangster style. We did not find it as a meaningful interview on Bloomers’ end because we feel his intentions were only to confront the man who exposed him and try and ‘put him in his place’. This, our friends, was not successful. We doubt that William McCray will back down on his style of reporting and why Bloomer entertained the thought of confronting a blogger, we will never know. But what is very clear that came from this interview is: McCray was able to openly and seriously further uncover the issues of the prosperity gospel, homosexuals behind the pulpit and sexual abuse in the church. He was able to expose the willingness many megachurch pastors have to be celebrities before pastors. McCray attacked their integrity because in so many words he states that their ministries can’t really grow to a true level of worthiness because they lack integrity. We felt the interview was unnecessary yet necessary. It was unnecessary because of the intentions behind wanting to ridicule a blogger for writing an article. It was a necessary interview because even though Bloomer wanted maintain control over the discussion, he willingly allowed McCray to speak his mind about what is wrong with the church today and in that he lost control again.

In our opinion, McCray may have been seen as an unlikely candidate to discuss the issues in the church, but no one can deny that he surely has been aware and in tuned with them and has had his own experiences in the church as well. Though we don’t endorse the trivial side of his blog, but no one can deny in this case, he threw a loop in the game of prosperity preachers with no integrity.

Magachurch ministers should find this interview eye opening and not just an attack by a “self appointed watchdog” for the church but an opportunity to do what God really called them to do: Preach the gospel with no financial schemes involved at the sake of lost and weary souls. Will they reevaluate their focal compass? We shall see.