Should Christians Pledge Fraternities & Sororities? - Part 2

Blessings to Israel presents Discerning the Times, a program committed to encouraging you to view current events through the lens of the Bible. Now, in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, please join us for today's program.

Your call not to be in the dark or in the background, we'll call it be light and salt. So I just used a platform, if you will, to challenge people, I'm sold out for God. And how can you be sold out for God and sold out for another organization at the same time? And that was just my conviction. I had not really at that time had not done any depth study just knew that I'm in the greatest organization called the body of Christ.

I have the greatest color on my side, the blood of Jesus Christ, that will never lose his power. And so I started preaching and I'll talk about that later on campus and got invited different places. And I don't know if they were taken off guard. I don't know if they didn't know what to do with me at the time.

Because one of the things I did as student body president, whether it was at the game, whether it was when we had the disaster with the challenger, with Ron McNair in 86, or any platform I had, I would always start off by saying first giving on to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, I don't know if that was my comfort zone. I don't know if that was my help and it was, but that's what started. And so I started seeing a trend that Christians were starting to be divided, whether or not they were going to be sold off of God and try to pledge to be in a fraternity or sorority at the same time. Welcome to Discern in the Times.

My name is Brian Thomas. Always a blessing to be with you and I want to thank you for tuning in. That was superintendent and pastor James Thornton being interviewed by Bishop Patrick Woodin on the topic, should Christians pledge fraternities and sororities? And Pastor Thornton has blessed us to be back this week to continue our discussion on this very topic. Before we get to that, I want to remind you that your eternal state is far more important than your current state. If you have never received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, I urge you, I plead with you to do so today because otherwise you are facing an eternal existence in the lake of fire separated from our great Lord. So if you've never received him, please come to Jesus Christ on today. Well, once again, we are blessed to have back with us for the second week, pastor James Thornton to discuss should Christians pledge fraternities and sororities.

Before I bring him in, I want to play another short piece of the interview from the opening to help set the tone for our discussion this week. Should Christians play it? Christians. That's the, so if you're not saved and you said what we said, we're brought there in the UDS, they left fee on maternity off. I understand.

Yeah. But for Christians, Christians born again, born again, stay with us now. I'm going somewhere. So for Christian, that's my audience. How do you justify from a biblical standpoint of being involved?

Once the light is shining, let's say you didn't know you were so excited about the colors, you're so excited about crossing over, you got some Greek letters, you got a t-shirt, you got a jacket, you know it on campus, you flash the sign. Let's say you just didn't know as a Christian. But today I believe enough will be said that you, you've got to make a decision. You almost got to do what Joshua said in this final address before he was lived to be 110 years old. And it says, choose you this day, whom you're going to serve. And I think that's what this message about. So Christian's pledge is really about choosing, choosing and making a choice that now, you know, if you missed last week's interview with pastor Theron thing, I want to encourage you to visit our YouTube channel, discerning the times search for should Christians play at fraternities and sororities part one. And so today we're going to continue again, this, this very important subject, because a lot of people today are involved in these things who profess to be Christians. And we just want to make people aware of what it is that they are truly being involved with. So last week we left off with pastor Therenton speaking to us about the alpha phi alpha prayer. And I want to play just one more soundbite from his interview with Bishop wooden in which he's talking about that very subject. And then we'll bring pastor Therenton in for our discussion for this week.

Use the word of God to be religious enough to pour religious people in many times that are saved, but may not have the depth of where they need to be. You see what I'm saying? And so he had chapter chapter seven in the book from the alpha phi alpha fraternity prayer. Okay. And here's my question. This is their prayer. Oh Lord, may the true spirit of fraternity, not Jesus Christ, not the Bible, the Holy Spirit, not the Holy Spirit, may the true spirit of fraternity rule our hearts, God, our thoughts, watch this bishop control our lives so that we may become through the servants of all going down because I pledge and I have seen the light does refer who the light is or who the light was. My chapters meetings, my activities are a 10 regularly. I keep my vows. I am loyal. I am alpha. So talking about my chapter meetings, my activities being initiated.

So the question then because we use this just as a point. Jesus said that he's alpha and omega beginning and ending. The pledge says I am alpha. That's what it says. I'll read the last part again. It's experts. It's taken from their book.

It's not busy. It's taken from their book and it says, I'll read it again. Great point bishop, because I was pledged, initiated. I have seen the light. So if I pause right there and ask the alpha man or any fraternity, what's the light? Well, what light did you see? What light did you see? If you're born again, when you pledge, right?

Haven't you already seen the light, seen the light? Okay. My chapter meetings, my activities are attended regularly. I keep my vows. I am loyal. And it ends by saying, I am alpha.

Like, Oh, I, you know, I am alpha. I am this because I've seen the lights. So when I say a prayer of true spirit of eternity, what is that as a Christian or say true spirit of sorority, what is the true spirit?

Right? Cause this is true. Jesus said, and John eight 32, and you shall know the truth. The truth shall make you free. John 17 and 17, sanctify them through that truth. That's right.

That word is truth. Thank you, pastor Theron sin for being back with us once again this week and where we left off last time was on that very topic. You were speaking about the alpha phi alpha prayer. You also write in the book about the deltas as it concerns Bible verses and the prayer giving at their funerals. So can you speak to that, please?

Yes, sir. Uh, that's in the book is what, and what I wanted to do was to, and this is what the deltas call, um, really the, the greatest of these or then meditation. And we know first Corinthians 13, when Paul wrote that great letter, one of his great letters to the church at Corinth, he talked about chapter 13, we know being what I call the love chapter.

And so one of the things that we, we look at, and this is in chapter, um, I think chapter number, uh, four or five in the book, but it highlights chapter seven. I'm sorry, but it talks about this and it says that it says, uh, and I'll read this. The deltas meditation is not a paraphrase. Like the writer said, we're at a paraphrase needs to restate information to bring clarity. But what they do, like first Corinthians chapter 13, and they have down, well, we have verse two in the Bible says, though I have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries and all novels, love all faith. So I can remove mountains and have not charity.

I am nothing. Now that's in the King James version first Corinthians 13, two, but they, they, they insert and though I prophesy, it says, and though I prophesy, I know all the delta laws, rituals, and traditions and secrets and can recite them. They don't restate, uh, first Corinthians two, maybe like in a different version, they talk about it as if I'm meditating on Delta, Delta, this Delta, this Delta, this. And so when you, and it goes through all what they go through. Then it says, what really kind of deals with it is the latter verse where it says in the Bible and now about it, faith, hope and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity, which we know is charity is translated as love, but they said thus faith, hope and love and last on these three, but in Delta Sigma Theta, the greatest of these is love.

They're backing back up. Just another point to Delta's prayer. When I was a child, I was fake as a child, understood as a child. The Bible says when I became a man, I put away childish things.

You read that down through the year. When I was a pyramid, I talked as a pyramid, understood as a pyramid, as though as a pyramid, thought I was a pyramid. And now that I have become a Delta, meaning they have crossed over, I've done, I've done with the ways of those things intending to be Deltas, not intending to be preachers.

Okay, let me keep going. The Delta prayer memorial service says this, and I quote, make us to know the riches of thy love, help us to live as ideal Deltas should, not ideal Christians. Then when our task on earth, oh Lord, is ended, grant us a home above.

Well, that's a contradiction because you gotta be born again to go to heaven. You can't be a Delta or a Kappa or a Q to go to heaven. This is this. Oh, hear our prayer, Father. Hear our prayer. Amen. Then the chaplain says, our departed sorrows has entered into the haven of red, into our immortal Omega chapter.

What's the Omega chapter? As Christians, we believe we're going to heaven. Let us keep our torches burning and keep rendering service while we are yet blessed with life. Now, like I said before, this is what you say. This is not what I think you say.

This is what you say. And so if you've got people saying all of these things, many of them, I think are really off track. And I think a lot of people that I'm finding out that are coming out now, they said, brother, to be honest with you, I wanted so bad.

I didn't even know what I was doing. Wow. Yeah. I think that's what it boils down to with so many. It's something that they want. They want that, that, uh, lust of the flesh, right? That's what the Bible talks about. And oftentimes we hear lust and we think sexually, but it's not always that it can be for anything, power or money, fame, whatever it may be. And, and people want that.

They want to belong to that group so bad. So they're, they're not willing to do what Christ said. He said, what deny yourself. If you want to be a follower of him, deny your wheel, take up the cross and follow him. That is what we have to do. Uh, we have to deny ourselves and it's not always easy to do.

It's not always easy to do, but to be a true follower of Christ, that's, that's what we must do. And, and pastor theorems and you tell me what, what your opinion is. But I, I think what, when it comes to these things like, uh, these groups, these fraternities and sororities, what people are trying to do is feel a void within themselves. It's a God shaped void that only Christ can feel, but they're trying to fill it with other things. They want to belong to something, but we can only belong to Christ and have true fulfillment in this life.

That's correct. And our brother Thomas, you hit the nail on the head when you said as a Christian, our identity, who we are, not what we want to become, to be rooted and grounded in scripture. And when it's rooted and grounded in scripture, what's going to happen for you and I, we're going to find ourselves saying, Lord, thank you that who I am and what I want to become, I'm coming in you. And when I is not rooted and grounded in Christ and we're not surrendered 500, a thousand percent, then we're going to go looking for, as you said, that first John talked about the luck of the flesh, the luck of the eyes and the pride of life. And I think that's where a lot of Christians are.

It's the truth be told that a lot of Christians are not really sold out, not committed, not focused on what God wants to do. And I think one of the things that helped us in 1985, the summer before we started school, I went to a conference in Atlanta called Building a Near My Generation. I met a group of college students out there that were on fire. I didn't stay for the whole conference. The Lord spoke to me.

I got in the car, drove back to Greensboro. And so we're going to have six o'clock morning prayer on A&T's campus. The fourth Monday, 1985 Arison Auditorium on A&T's campus. We had 85 young people to show up for prayer at six o'clock in the morning. We started initially on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then we started going five or six days a week. And during that time revival broke out.

And when revival broke out on A&T's campus, Bennett, UNCG, even as far as Winston-Salem State University circled back and hit Elon for a while. And because of that prayer and because we saw identity, not rooted in the colors we wore or the groups we associate, our identity was rooted in, I'm a Christian. I'm saved. I'm born again. I'm sold out. And that's all I need.

I don't need other relationships to enhance me. The only way I need to solidify myself is that I'm a born again Christian. I'm sold out to the cause of Christ and anything else that does not line up with that, I don't have time to get involved with. And out of that revival, that's how also the book came up because there was a purging.

It was a taking away. It was a rendering of us surrendering ourselves to God, a group of young college students. And like I said earlier, we had our pastor at that time, Bishop Otis Lockett Sr., who's with the Lord now, and his lovely wife who's still alive, our mother in the gospel, Mother Barbara Lockett. Those two young people, other adults, poured into us. And guess what we did? We went back to the college campuses and poured into them. And when I started researching and studying all of this, the more I preached on it, the more God gave me a piece. And the more God gave me a piece, the more people started coming out. Now, did we have some pushback?

Absolutely. You're talking about a historical back college. You're telling me I played World War III. But it was something about how God calls revival to come to a college campus there and other campuses.

And now we're still feeling the remnants of that almost 40 years later because some people that were willing to pay the price. Amen. Wow. That is awesome.

That is awesome. And as you said, our identity is in Christ. And when your identity is in Christ, you do just exactly what you've done, Pastor Thorentine, writing this book, you filter everything in life through the Bible. And that is exactly what you're doing. You're looking at this Greek life through the Bible and say, does this line up with scripture?

And when we started this podcast, that was one of the things we said, we are going to base this on. We are discerning the times by viewing life through the lens of the Bible. And folks, that's what you have to do. If you are going to claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, you have to make decisions based on the word of God. One last thing that I want to speak on and then we'll wrap things up is the branding that takes place.

There is branding where people's bodies are physically branded to show that you belong to this fraternity or this sorority. And when I think about that, I think about Revelation 3, verse 12, it says, he who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. And he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God.

And I will write on him my new name. We belong to the Lord and the Lord says that he's going to write his name on us. So why are we being branded with names and symbols of things that are not of our Lord? And I think it goes to a deeper level of commitment about people that join. I think it goes to a deeper level of people wanting to be associated with, and they're just so happy that they get branded. And I think what most people don't know, or some may know, that the males receive that branding because they were very, it's kind of like tattoos back in my day, but they had brandings on the arms and on the chest, on the legs, some of them, but the ladies get branded.

That's what a lot of people don't know. The ladies get branded. And some of them even get branded like on the inside of their thighs.

In the book, one of the sisters, they do that. And it's not that people don't know what's about to happen, but I think they are so committed and so wanted to be a part of something and not found their true identity in Christ, they will literally do things. And when they wake up the next morning or the next day or the next week or the next month, they probably say, what have I done?

What if I got myself into that's going to cost me some time, some energy, some focus? And that's why, like I said at the beginning, I try to get people to that point. You're a Christian. Okay, look at these things. You're a non-Christian. Still look at these things. Well, you still want to go through this to be a part of that.

And if that's the case, then you pretty much going to get what you asked for. But as Christians that say that Jesus Christ is my Lord, which means He's in charge of my life and my Savior. He saved me from a life of sin. I'm walking in the newness of life. I'm a new creature in Him.

Now what are the things that I need to do to please Him? And that's where the point I try to bring people to when we have a discussion or they read the book, I try to bring them to that point. And then after that, like I said before, we share, we've encouraged, hopefully we have instructed, hopefully something has been said to prick hearts. And then after that, on that individual, individuals to make a decision at that point, what are you going to do? Right, right. All right, Pastor Tharrington.

Well, to close us out, share with our audience what advice you have for anyone that says, okay, I already went down that road. I made that mistake. I realized that it was wrong. I've done it. I've been humiliated. Now, what do I do?

And any other closing thoughts that you will have for the audience on the topic? Yes, sir. Thank you, brother Thomas. Two things I would say. First of all, pray.

Pray first of all, that God will give you wisdom. Second of all, what I say in the book, you know, you come to a realization that I made a mistake. I no longer will be a part. Send a letter to your national office or your local book, to your local chapter, your national office. I'm a Christian.

I made a mistake. I no longer want to be a part of said organization. I'm returning my, I'm giving you my letter that I'm out.

Please assist from having me on your mailing list or email list. And I'm no longer a member of said fraternity. And then the other thing I would say to the person, once you come out, because you pledge with other people, you can even let your line people know the Lord may use you as a vehicle to pull some of them out.

Let them know that you have eight people on the line with you. You may not tell, Hey, hey, guys or girls, I'm no longer a member of this group. I'm out. Give your testimony and say, you know, I still respect you as a person, but I'm no longer a member of this fraternity or sorority. I will not attend any meetings. I will not pay any dues. I'm done with that life.

I'm sold out to Jesus Christ. And then at that point, move on with your life. Now you can probably get some calls.

You can probably get some letters or some emails. You gotta be prepared for that and just ask God to give you the wisdom how to deal with it. And that's what I always tell people. Once you come out, you know, you use your coming out as a testimony of why you came out and then no better person than you. You can say, Hey, you know, we, we did, we allowed a lot of stuff that was not scriptural or not even ethical or not even nice to happen us for those calls.

And I was wrong and I'm out. And then let the Lord drive the conversation from there. And I've seen people have great influence doing it that way. Cause we still love people. We still call to reach people. We still call from things that we don't agree. We're still called to love people.

And I think love can translate into helping others see the light and come out as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. The title of the book once again is should Christians pledge fraternities and sororities, uh, pastor Theron's. And it's been such a blessing to have you on, how can the audience get a copy of this book?

Yes, sir. Thank you. But the way you can get a copy of the book, the book is $15 per book and $3 for shipping and handling. Uh, please write to, and I'll say it twice, just put successful life church or successful life coaching, C O G I T post office box 1481 pension book division, high point NC, and you zip it two seven two six one. The address again is successful life church.

We'll keep it simple. Post office box 1481 that's 1481 attention book division, high point NC two seven two six one. And when you send your letter, uh, you can send in a check or money orders preferable, but checks are fine.

Make it out to successful life church. Put in your memo, uh, just put a book and just put S C P F. Yes. Should Christians pledge and the number of books that you want. What I didn't mention, brothers Thomas, I want you to know we are currently working on, um, volume two of your Christian plays. We're trying to have it out this fall and volume two is going to be, um, take it to a different level.

For example, we found out that a lot of people like parents or grandparents do nothing about fraternities and sororities. So we're adding things to each chapter of the book so that if a person picks up the books, I know nothing about what y'all are talking about. They can take that book, they can read part two of the book and say, oh, now I understand what book one was saying. So it's going to be kind of a companion to book one. And I think book two is going to be the book that's really going to challenge people to really sit down and ask some hard questions like we asked today.

So preferably trying to get it out. Volume two, part two, um, by August, if possible, if not, it definitely be, uh, uh, Lord willing by this fall. So I'll tell everybody to get the first copy because that that's the book that started the conversation. So, and if anybody has questions, they can send it to that PO box and a book division, we will respond in a timely manner. Amen. And I encourage you again, folks, please get the book because we've only scratched the surface during this conversation.

There's so much more that is so eyeopening. So if you really want to understand, if you really want your, your walk with Christ to be intact when it comes to this topic, I encourage you to, to pick up a copy of this book and we'll be on the lookout for the next volume, volume two that is coming out and we'll look to have you back again to speak on that because a great conversation and again, very eyeopening information. And just one last thing that I want to share with the audience before we close is that folks, you know, doing this kind of thing where you decide that, okay, this is outside of my identity in Christ, so I'm not going there.

You may lose some friends. I remember when I was in college, my freshman year, the group of guys that I befriended when I first got to college, they all pledged and I did not. And so what that meant was pretty much the majority of the things that they participated in from that point forward, I was not a part of it.

And so I spent a lot of time alone as a result. And for some people that's tough, it's tough to walk alone, but I want to encourage you that Jesus is going to walk with you. If you will trust him, if you will deny yourself and follow him, and he will take away even that desire to be a part of, of such organizations, if you really, really want to walk with him. So I just want to encourage people that, and Jesus said that in the end, he will reward you openly.

So keep that in mind. So once again, pastor Thornton, so great to have you on. Thank you so much. And may God continue to order your steps and to strengthen you as you continue with this message. And I praise God for what he has placed on your heart in, in sharing this message to the people. Amen. But thank you again, brother Thomason and to God be the glory.

Thank you again, sir. Amen. Amen. All right. And to our audience, please come back and join us again next week as we continue to encourage you to discern the times by viewing life through the lens of the Bible until then remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel until the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. Thank you for tuning into discerning the times. Please come back and join us next week as we continue to encourage you to view current events through the lens of the Bible until next time, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel and seek first the kingdom of God discerning the times is presented by blessings to Israel.