The concert arenas, one in which the crowd often jumped to its feet to sing along with gospel’s hitmakers, each echoed in worship. From “I am a Friend of God” to “Change me Oh God” to “I’m Looking for a Miracle” to “I’ve Got the Victory” to “Smile.”
“In my music, I’ve got to try to find honesty and some truth to get through this (life), because real pretty Christian pictures have never been the best for me to paint,” shared Franklin. “That ain’t my life. My life is folks getting shot, a church in the middle of a crack-[infested] neighborhood and people trying to figure out how to pay bills. That’s what I’m called to, and I’m comfortable there.”
Franklin has his ear to the rail, apparently, because more believers – younger, protestant parishioners, in particular – are checking the duality and hypocrisy they’ve grown up in.
A recent Barna survey of protestant American pastors found 83% believed that past experiences with a religious institution caused doubt in Christian beliefs. Additionally, 80% of these same pastors rated the hypocrisy of religious people as the second reason why people doubt Christian beliefs. For the general population, ages 13+ who represent no faith, this registered first at 42%.
One of Franklin’s guests, Anthony Evans Jr., a contemporary-Christian music artist and son of Tony Evans, the well-known pastor of Dallas’ Oak Cliff Bible Texas, acknowledged “church hurt.” Church hurt stems from conflicts within the church, abuse of power, hypocrisy, or exclusionary attitudes. He emphasized the need for a more meaningful relationship with God and selfless work for others as the answer to some of the frustration. He suggested that we could become doers of the word by partnering with the Food for the Hungry campaign.