Crazy Uncle Jimmy

Oh, crazy Uncle Jimmy.  There he goes again.

And since we're all a big disfunctional family here, you know I'm talking about James David Manning, the pastor at the ATLAH World Missionary Church at the corner of Lenox Avenue and 123rd Street.

He's got a new sign up that proclaims "Jesus is True: Obama is Evil.  He used black vote to Uncle Tom for Wall Street."  Confoundingly, the last line says "Speak Love & Truth".  Uh-huh.

Who is this guy anyway?  Well, he has a Wikipedia page, that says he is a convicted felon (he committed burglaries on Long Island), became a Christian in prison and took over the former Bethelite Community Baptist Church and renamed it ATLAH, which he says stands for All The Land Anointed Holy.  


Oh, and by the way, did you know he has changed Harlem's name to ATLAH too?  Going from Nieuw Haarlem to Harlem is a much more logical procession than going from Harlem to ATLAH, so we're nodding, smiling and slowly backing away from crazy Uncle Jimmy.

But as the infomercials say, "Wait, there's more!"  Haven't even mentioned his supposedly biblically-based "No Dew, Nor Rain" boycott campaign to create a general suffering in Harlem - ahem, ATLAH - so as to drive out all property owners and businesses so that his congregation can buy up the area.


Or that he hates gentrifiers (presumably, that means whites) but said that 'Africa is cursed and also that African-Americans should not support Kwanzaa, the NBA or any major Black-owned business', not to mention his strange hatred of Obama (what the heck is a long-legged mack daddy, anyway?).  


One of my favorite things, though is that he has a Doctor of Philosophy degree (a Ph.D.) - from the ATLAH Theological Seminary, which he himself "founded".  I think I'll give myself a Masters of Business Administration - no, wait, I want my own Medical Doctor degree...from the Mount Morris Monitor Medical College, of course.


Sorry, Uncle Jimmy.  You have to sit at the kids' table at Christmas this year.

Small Harlem Churches in Decline

Interesting article in the New York Times yesterday, which reports on the decline in some historic Harlem churches, including the Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church, located at Mount Morris Park West and West 122nd Street.  Most interesting to me is the article's characterization that the decline is in large part the result of gentrification in the neighborhood (though in fairness, it does mention the aging congregations as a contributing factor).  However, as a relatively new resident of Harlem, the following really caught my eye:

The void in consistent leadership has cost the church in other ways — slowing efforts to recruit new congregants in a changing Harlem, a neighborhood ever more populated by young professionals.

Ministers from churches across Harlem said they had yet to penetrate the walls of the high-price condominiums and the million-dollar refurbished brownstones that now dominate the neighborhood. Some, in truth, expressed little desire to do so. Others said they saw the gentrification of Harlem as an opportunity, but one as yet unrealized.

It seems counterintuitive to realize that your congregation is shrinking, but not reach out to an influx of new residents and try to bring them in. I do hope that Mount Morris Presbyterian does not fall to the same fate as many other churches in the neighborhood and become somebody's development play - the history of the church is too great and the architecture of the building too unique.