Pastor comes under fire after church members were caught on camera dancing to Jay Z STORY of O.J in church
Rev. Marcus Murchinson who is the senior pastor of Tree of Life Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, California promotes the use of Jay Z’s new album song during his sermon.
The man of God made headlines for allowing his choristers perform a track out of Jay Z’s album, following the event, believers and Christian leaders around the world have moved to criticize the gesture but the pastor remains unapologetic.
“The truth is sometimes when I’m praying, my prayers are not ‘guide me o thy great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.’ I’m not quoting from the 23rd Psalm. I’m not quoting from Philippians. Sometimes my prayers have explicit language in them. God I am bleep, bleep, bleep upset. And because of that, I learned that God can handle that,” the rev. said
In the video which has since gone viral, posted by his now-fired drummer, 3 young girls could be heard mixing and dancing to “The Story Of OJ” by Jay Z and Tasha Cobbs‘ “Break Every Chain”.
Despite receiving several backlash and death threat the man of God is unfettered.
“The one thing that’s apparent about language is that there’s a difference between cursing or using derogatory language and using colloquial language,” Murchinson said. “What Jay-Z was using in this particular presentation was not inflammatory or derogatory. He was making a point to just communicate in a colloquial dialect that people understand… Ain’t a word in that song that I don’t know myself, that my congregation doesn’t know and or have used. So why do we come into God’s house and act like we don’t know it?”
The video which has received +3million views does not have viewers sharing the same perspective with the man of God. Most reactions to the clip do not share Murchison’s appreciation for colloquialism in the house of the Lord.
Some have said while the church was trying to imitate the Hip Hop culture, use of colloquial language is not even close to Hip Hop Gospel.
