Kirk Franklin’s Response to TBN | Praise on TBN

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we’re going to talk about the good but

we’re recognizing we’re coming from

something that’s not good long before

Kurt pastor Robert pastor Tony we were

all born long before we inherited a

situation that we’re gonna unpack some

today but Kirk would you help me would

you help me understand what I need to

understand would you inform me if I’m

ignorant would you help me is I think

that you have been creating this

opportunity is one of the greatest steps

to just gathering information to be

willing to be open to hear and to listen

I commend you as a white man and so as I

strive to communicate and try to be very

didactic in in in my explanation of not

only how we got here but but but but

some of the issues that even though we

may have inherited some things there are

also some things that we are maybe

contributing as well just because I

think the overall theme can also be how

the failure of the church has

contributed to the systemic racism that

continues in our culture and it has been

the failure of the church in and and we

can have the conversation of race in a

general aspect but I think for the four

of us it is very important to keep it

through through the lens of our

Christian perspective because I believe

that we from the first inception should

have been the leaders of healing of

unity and racial reconciliation in our

country but in order to do that we also

have to we’ve got to own some stuff

right right right all right we’ve got to

be able to acknowledge some stuff and so

this is not a conversation of me

attempting to make white people feel bad

for being white it is to give a bigger

perspective on the heartbreaks and the

hurts that that black and brown people

in America are looking for the church to

be a safe haven but

time’s it isn’t always answering to that

call a lot of people know that how I got

here to be able to be on the stage was

an experience that I had last year at

the Dove Awards where there were some

things that happened that for me as a

black man was very hurtful and painful

and so I make some decisions that I was

going to humbly back out until there

were some tangible things put in place

they could be able to speak to the areas

of race within the framework of our

Christian experience again I’m not

looking for the culture to answer the

problems that the church should be

leading in yeah I’m not doing that we

should be leading the call we we should

we should be leading the cry of what

that looks like and so because there

were some things that happened that if

you’ve been following me anybody that’s

watching this has been following me over

the last six to eight months they know

that there was something that happened

there that that caused me to feel this

heartbreak and that I know that my

community has been waiting for me to

respond to and so growing up in the

church growing up in Christian music and

in gospel music there has been numerous

moments that I wanted to see a unity

that I never saw happened I’ll give you

a great example I did a song with Toby

Mac and an artist by the name of Mandisa

and it was a song of Toby’s I’m Toby

back from DC Talk and I’ve been friends

for years

and so he invited me to do a song off of

this out on this album called the song

school I don’t want to gain the whole

world and lose my soul and so he asked

me to come on and I did my verse I

created like the whole second verse and

I remember driving down the toll we’re

here in Dallas on a Christian radio

station and the song came on the radio I

was oh man this is the song this is song

the man told me if you don’t know Toby

Mac told megazor white Christian artist

and Mandisa she’s an african-american

singer that is a Christian artist men in

the white Christian community that that

is more of the space that she exists in

so the song came on in like all

Minnesotans good on the radio and I’m

turning it up for my verse I’m ready for

my verse

this and this isn’t 20 years ago this

isn’t 30 years ago this was 7 or 8 maybe

10 max so we’re still looking at a

modern age of conversation it’s time for

my verse and the radio goes blank they

cut my entire verse out because of how I

was communicating my faith culturally

more from a more urban swaggie position

I might do Toby love diverse his enable

of her they released the song it wasn’t

like this was a song that got leaked

Toby loved the verses label everybody

loved the verse but the system’s felt

that must that my verse was too black

and it really broke my heart because I

have lived in the space of Christian

music for so long everybody has my

number

everybody knows how to get in touch with

me I’m not a difficult guy to get in

touch if there was some things I said in

verse for example I said something about

God is not concerned about twenty-twos

and so they thought I was talking about

a gun I was talking about the size of

rims on a car if you didn’t understand

it

hey Kirk you sound good on that verse

can you explain to me what 22s are but

instead you edit out my verse

I believe that black and brown people in

this country continuously feel like

they’re edited out and so you can only

get edited out for so long that after a

while you decide to not want more to

show up anymore and so you begin to

build your own systems and sometimes

those systems are built out of anger and

frustrations and so when you leave this

hole of a lack of engagement then you

leave people to build their own

narrative of what the truth is and I

believe that because being being very

candid honest black and brown people did

not build the system so it is very

difficult for the white Christian

community to look at black and brown

people to necessarily fix a system that

they didn’t have a say-so and how it was

built

because there are also inner workings

within the system that are systemic and

so it’s no longer race that we new race

to be in the 19th century or the 18th

century it’s a news systemic racism that

it always seems to be where black and

brown people are always the subjects of

the Edit pastor Robert well it breaks my

heart

you know said here about my brother that

I love that I know that we go lunch

together yeah yeah and hear that and

what he reinforces in me is he’s

experienced a lot of things I’ve never

experienced yeah I’ve never experienced

that you know when I was before I got

saved people know that I was involved in

drugs now you got caught with drugs well

my dad everybody knew my dad in town

he just took care of it I didn’t go to

jail my dad just picked me up rushed

away

mmm but not if I’d have been a black

young man probably yeah you know I’m

learning things that I didn’t know I’m

learning that I don’t remember the

number at six eight or ten but it’s

something like that that a black man for

the exact same crime goes to jail six or

eight times longer than a white man and

when you hear this as a white Christian

your heart should break it absolutely

should break and then you should say to

your brothers how can I be a part of the

solution and so here’s another story

about my brother Kirk that I’ve known

for years I never I never heard that and

if I’m sitting you’re holding back the

tears thinking there’s a Nissen it’s not

just that something happened like he

mentioned at the Dove Awards and the two

of you reached out talked and and said

hey let’s do something to fix the

problem and I’ve come in both of you for

that but it’s that he’s got a list of

these stories that happen yes

so it just breaks my heart but what

we’ve got to do is what we’re doing

right now we’ve got talked about I have

a pastor friend of mine african-american

and he met with almost every pastor in

town saying could we bring our two

churches together just to talk any only

one found found one pastor that would do

it but the white pastor that did it they

would meet on Wednesday nights they’d

have dinner together but they seated if

there were four black people table there

were four white and they made sure and

they simply asked questions like they

asked what do you feel about people not

standing during the national anthem well

the white person said well my father

died in World War two so to me you’re

taking a stand against the country but

when the black person shared what he

felt they both were able to say I’m

sorry I didn’t know you felt that way I

think we’ve got to do some talking and I

really believe it needs to start the

church pastor time well I think I’d be

old this person of this regime no you’re

not that’s a 70 year old man and I can

trace from the earliest days I remember

going to was called White Tower in

Baltimore Maryland and I would ask that

one occasion I said dad let’s go get

some hamburgers because it was a

hamburger place he says oh you can’t go

in there

they won’t allow us there and that’s

when he was educating me about

segregation in Baltimore Maryland as a

teenager I remember being pulled over by

a white policeman and being held there

and told you don’t belong in this

neighborhood and he kept me almost an

hour on the side of the road which

almost got me fired from my job as a as

a young man been in ministry in Atlanta

Georgia I went to a Anglo Church and

they told me that I was not welcome

there and it was what we would call

today a very evangelical Southern

Baptist

Church then what it was come time to go

to seminary so I’m now in my 20 I’m

applying to a seminary that just had

recently decided that it would allow

blacks in on probation on probation on

probation so of course a lot of people

will notice how all these Bible

Institute started as a way of

maintaining segregation in the name of

still trying to authenticate theological

instruction then when it came time to do

ministry and I was trying to get on

radio I was told by a leading Network we

cannot put you on the radio it would

offend too many of my white listeners so

now I’m in my 30s and and it took a

letter from James Dobson writing the

stations which which opened up those

doors in other words I can trace decade

after decade personal experiences of the

fact that I was a believer the fact that

I was a biblio century believer

conservative theology did not override

the racial division that was in the

culture that it also infiltrated the

church even with within the last twenty

years there were churches teaching the

curse of ham yes as they feel logical

template for understanding the condition

of black people in America so so I can I

can trace this a reality so there are

conversations for example that I had

with my sons and that my daughter

priscilla shirer has with her grandsons

that angle a pair of parents don’t have

to have and that is if you pulled over

by police you say this this way because

the mere fact of how you look and your

complexion is going to create a negative

a potential negative situation that

could put things on edge that’s a

conversation most black parents have

with their children because of the

environment in which we live so when I

trace that it becomes clear and

I look at as Martin Luther King said 11

o’clock on Sunday morning even though we

have had progress it’s still the most

segregated hour in America it read

underscores the fact that the systems at

play

even if individuals have progressed have

not gotten us to the point where we’re

implementing biblical truth for the

transformation of Christians for the

transformation of see out theology and

God is not going to skip the church

house to fix the culture