PREACHER MAN Leyland E. George lets his tapes do the talking.
Posted on 04/01/2012 6:06:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
TWENTY-FIVE years ago, when bulky twin-speaker cassette players were still popular, Leyland E. George bought a nice, loud Panasonic for $90, clipped a shoulder strap to it and began his boombox ministry in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
“I realized I could reach more people in the streets than any church, so I made the streets my church,” said Mr. George, 70, a Guyanese immigrant whose special brand of Christianity deplores the separation of people along racial lines.
“I want to know why people see themselves as black or white,” he said.
The box has been repaired often through the years, and is held together with layers of packing tape. It has been through thousands of Duracell D batteries and hundreds of Mr. George’s special tapes of his own preaching mixed with Caribbean tunes.
He devotes his Sunday walk exclusively to gospel music. Tuesdays are devoted to sermons from the Scripture, while Thursdays are for his own recorded sermons, which often consist of a string of quirky rhymes.
“I might say something like, ‘If you don’t believe in the word of God, you are a fraud,’ ” he said.
Mr. George’s theme song is Bob Marley’s “Rat Race,” which refers to race and urban problems. On Thursdays, Mr. George often delivers his special “rat race sermons” on the same themes.
“There is only the human race,” he said, “and when you divide it into groups, you get a rat race.”
Mr. George remains silent and solemn on his thrice-weekly sermon-walks through the neighborhood, preferring to let the mixtapes speak for him. The portable radio and tape player hangs around his neck and delivers the day’s sermon as he clasps his hands over it and walks in rhythm to the music, stopping at red lights and bobbing to the blaring beat of soca,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
PREACHER MAN Leyland E. George lets his tapes do the talking.
Love it.
“Special Brand of Christianity?”
God is no respecter of persons. Neither is a true Christian.
I answered my Census form “Human” when asked for ‘race’.
So much hatred based on skin, when we are all created in Gods image.
Pray for our country.
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