A Message to Catholics, from Min. Louis Farrakhan Jude Wanniski August 7, 1997

Memo To: Website Browsers, Fans, Clients
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Farrakhan in Church

[On April 20, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan was invited to address the congregation of Chicago’s St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church, by its pastor, Father Pflager. The priest, who is white, had attended several of the NOI events in Chicago and had come to see Min. Farrakhan as I do, as a spiritual leader, in no way an anti-Semitic political force. Following are extended excerpts from his message to the largely black congregation.]

In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful, we give Him praise and we give Him thanks for all of his many blessings to the human community. We thank him for Moses and the Torah and all the Prophets to the Children of Israel. We thank him for Jesus and the Gospel. We thank him for Muhammad and the Qu’ran. As a student of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, I am eternally grateful to Allah for his intervention into our affairs in the person of Master Farad Muhammad, the great Mahdi, who came from the East to the West to search among us to find one worthy that he could give to him a word that would take the Torah, the Gospel and the Qu’ran and make those books relevant to this day, this time, and this people.

I thank God for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and I greet all of you, my dear and wonderful brothers and sisters, with the greeting words of peace. We say it in Arabic as “Salaam alaykum” We say it in Hebrew as “Shalom aleichem” We say it in English, “Peace be unto you.” To our esteemed pastor, brother and friend, the Reverend Father Pflager, to the members of Saint Sabina, to my brothers who read the words of the scriptures, to the choir, to the members of the Nation of Islam who are present, to all of the visitors and friends, I thank Father Pflager for the joy and the privilege of being in this holy place on this day.

I asked Father Pflager to give me something to speak on and he did give me some words that he thought would be good but this morning as I was coming -- and as you notice I didn’t bring any notes -- I wanted to talk from my heart to yours. And as I was on my way here I thought I would take a subject that no one thought I would take. And so my subject today is titled, “Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Praise His Holy Name.”

Now some might say, “I thought you were a Muslim and that you people didn’t believe in Jesus.” But in the reading of the Word our brother and teacher said, “I am the Good Shepherd.” The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep but other sheep has He that are not of this fold. But He’s lord of all and Shepherd over all. Now people can look at the same thing and see it differently. The thing that they are looking at is, what it is but their perception of it may differ, and sometimes we get divided on perception, but we can never change the reality of what we’re looking at. So I want to talk about not just your Lord and Savior but our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Praise His Holy Name.

Why do we need a Lord and Savior? In the beginning, in the Book of Genesis, God created male and female in the image and likeness of God. In the fifth chapter of Genesis He said, “Male and female created He them and called their name Adam.” Ofttimes we don’t preach about that. Male and female are representative of God, male and female are created in the image and likeness of God. I want to stop here for a moment. If I’m created in the image and likeness of God then the Constitution that calls black folk three fifths of a human is either a liar or the Bible is untrue. Now if the Bible is true -- and it is -- and all of us are created in the image and likeness of God then all human beings are like God’s double. Wait a minute now, I want things to sink in. All human beings, male and female, are like God’s double. If you’re in the image of something, in the likeness of something, you could be classified as the double as that that you’re in the image and likeness of. So when you see that person, you are looking at the double. How can you love God, whom you have never seen, and hate God’s double that you see every day? Something is wrong somewhere. Too much hate in the world. Too much division in the world. God’s love is something talked about but very rarely experienced on the human plane.

It is easy to say Jesus today, it’s easy to talk Jesus. It’s another thing to live Jesus. It’s one thing to shout Jesus -- and you get credit for shouting -- you get credit! But today something else is demanded of the followers of Jesus Christ. And when you find out what is demanded of you, see the good times, fingerpopping. That’s all right, but you’ve got to take this thing up now to another level or you can be condemned.

The earth has been led out into the hands of wicked husbandmen and they’ve messed this thing up. Satan has taken over religion. Everything that says, “Lord, Lord” ain’t holy. If the church were the real house of God, why is there so much filth and abomination going on in the House of God? You can’t excuse yourself: Either we’ve got a Savior and we’ve got a Lord or we’ve got Him in name only but not in fact. Jesus is real. You can’t play with Him. This world plays with Jesus. They don’t like that image. Because white supremacy demanded that Jesus could not be a man of color. Recently in New Jersey, a black man was chosen to play the role of Jesus and he got death threats. He played the part of Judas the year before and they said that’s all right, let the nigger be Judas but the nigger can never be Jesus Christ. The boys that beat up Leonard Clark came out of a Catholic Church; the boys that beat up Annette Williams and son and nephew in Philadelphia and Grays Ferry came out of a Catholic Church. So the church don’t make you right because you’re in it. You gotta be in Christ in order to be right.

Now, do you know why we need a Lord and Savior? Because when Adam listened to the serpent and fell, look at the scriptures. “The day you eat of this fruit from this tree in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the day you eat it you will surely die.” Satan said “Oh don’t worry about that, Eve, go ahead and eat it baby: It’s going to be all right. Your eyes are goin’ to come open Sugar. Go ahead and eat that fruit.” And sure enough, she ate, he ate, and their eyes came open all right. But their eyes came open to their nakedness. But their eyes closed on that part of their being that God consistently works through. He works through the mind, the heart and the spirit. But when your mind is opened up to the lower self and you begin to follow your appetites rather than the word of God, then you become a slave to your lusts. And all the mess that the world is in today is because we’re dead spiritually, dead morally, dead from the heart. But we’re alive in all our appetites, so we feel better because I drive a Cadillac and you drive a Ford. You feel better because you got a mink and I’ve just got a coat. You feel better because you live in Pill Hill and I’m just struggling in the projects. See all these silly things got one thinking they’re better than the other. And all of this is Satanic! We raise hell six days out of the week -- you know what I mean? And then on Sunday we wipe the alcohol out with a little mouthwash and clear our head from the Saturday night reefer, jump out of the prostitution house.

Now I think I got myself in a lot of trouble this morning but I want to tie this little subject together. See Jesus comes into the world, not as a prophet, but He is the master of prophets and He seals the prophets as prophets because He fulfills what they wrote concerning Him. You call Him the Morning Star. After a night of darkness when you look you see a star rising. It comes up just before the sun, bearing witness that the sun is coming. The morning star leads you right on up into the sun and then it disappears in the light of the sun. He said, “I am the seed of David, the root of Jesse, the bright and the morning star.” He’s called the Star of God because in the Old Testament, it says, “A virgin shall conceive and she shall bring forth a child and his name will be called Emanuel,” meaning “God is with us!” He is not to come, He is with us! He’s present; He’s in the world and when Jesus comes, Jesus bears witness that God is now present and we need His presence to get out from under the grip of Satan.

Now listen, listen. He comes first as a man sowing seeds. The Kingdom of God is likened unto a man who sowed seeds. And while men slept, an enemy crept in and sowed tares in among the wheat. Look at us. You get so happy, you fall asleep on the Word. And then right in the      church -- read the writings of the apostles -- small, crooked ones, came in and inserted themselves in the church. They were wolves in sheep’s clothing. They looked like sheep. They praised God like you praise God but you see them drop a seed here and a seed there, and before you know it the congregation got lookin’ a little funny at this one or that one. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is not a coincidence. It has been written and some of us are fulfilling the worst of it and others are striving to fulfill the best of it.

You see, When God made Adam in His own image and likeness and gave him power and dominion over the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, and every creeping thing that crawls upon the earth, He told him, “Multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it,” He was making him a lesser God, but when he fell, he fell from God to man. Now you’re man. You once were God. “Oh, now Farrakhan, don’t make somethin’ up.” Oh no, I’m not making it up. David the Psalmist says, “Ye are all gods, children of”...who? The most high God! If God is your father and you’re a child of God, doesn’t your child grow up to do what you do? Well, when are you going to grow up to be, not the child of God but the manifestation of God? Now I want to go on a little deeper -- we’ll be finished in a minute.

Now, some of you say Jesus Christ, as though Christ was his last name.  This is Father Michael Pflager -- that’s his last name. Say, Louis Farrakhan -- that’s his last name. Jesus Christ. Christ was NOT his last name! Christ is his title! He did all his work, you saw Him, walked with Him. He had no fine building like this. His ministry was in the streets where Father Pflager’s ministry is. When the Father tries to take you out in the streets, some of you get jittery. “I’ll come to church on Sunday; but I ain’t walking with Father, going out there with them dope dealers, and drug dealers, and alcohol and tobacco dealers of death -- I think Father Pflager should get back into church where his ministry is...”  Well, his ministry is right where Christ’s ministry is; his ministry is where the people are and that’s your problem. You feel you’re saved, and you walk by the unsaved. Before you got here this morning, there were people laying in the street. They need Christ. Why don’t you say, “Hey, brothers, come here, straighten up, I want you to come with me. I want you to hear a man of God today.”

Now, as I near the conclusion: Jesus was relied on, even spoken of, they saw Him doing all these great things but they didn’t like Him. He was a Jew. But the other Jews, the rabbis, the scribes, the Pharisees, they didn’t like Him. What did he do wrong?

“Well, ya see, ah, on the Sabbath we s’posed to just do nuthin’ and I find this man who claims to be a Jew, he’s wukin’ on the Sabbath! He ain’t real!”

They were such sticklers for law that they had lost the Spirit. And they accused Him. And He said, “Wait a minute. I didn’t come to change the Law, I came to fulfill what is written in the Law.”  See, talking the Law and fulfilling the Law ain’t the same. Then Jesus dropped something on them that they haven’t figured out yet! He said man hasn’t been made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath is made for man. And they didn’t ask him, “Lord, what do you mean by that?” See, when you call Jesus “Lord, Our Lord” what are you saying? The Word, in Hebrew, is rabbi, the Word in Arabic is, rab, the Word in English is lord or master or teacher. If, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and that flesh dwelled among men -- then you’ve got the Word. You and I are supposed to be nurtured into the Word of God where we become Gods that you could say, “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world and if He and Master conquered the world, overcame the world, then you shouldn’t be singing we shall overcome. You should be singing we have overcome.

Look at this. Our Lord said, “Jesus is your Lord. Then every day under the Word, you should be getting better and better just as if you continue to eat food, you continue to grow. If you continue to feed on the Word, you grow into God. When you see Jesus, you see the Father. When you see the Father, you see Jesus. Well then, when I see you, I’m supposed to see Him. Because if you are in Him and the Word is in you, then He is in you. And when I see you I’m looking at Jesus. Un-huh, okay, I’m almost there.

They came to Jesus and He said, “Who do they say I am?”  “Well, they say you are a prophet; Isaiah, or Jeremiah; some say you’re Elijah” -- well at least they put him in the prophetic community! -- but the reason he was asking “Who do they say I am” was because He never told them. See most of us want to tell people, “Do you know who I am?” You don’t have to tell people who you are. You don’t have to tell me you’re an electrician -- if the lights are out, fix it, then I’ll know who you are! By your works, they will KNOW you! You can tell a tree by the fruit it bears and you can tell a man by his works! Jesus was working, never telling anybody who He was, He just kept working. John, the disciple said, “Who shall I tell them in words you are?”  “Just tell them that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead are being raised to life and the Gospel is being preached to the poor. Go tell them that! If you tell him my works he’ll KNOW who I am.”

When He gave the first commandment, which is to “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind,” that’s everything! I ain’t got nothing else for the flag but respect, but my allegiance belongs to Him who gave His life for me.

Now I close: He’s worthy to be free. See, not only is He the stone that the builders rejected and has become the headstone of the corner. A cornerstone is a great stone, it’s got to be stronger than all other stones because it upholds the weight of the building. If God is going to build an eternal Kingdom, then He who is the cornerstone of an eternal Kingdom has to have enormous strength and power to be that. So He was despised and rejected, but so are we. We are a rejected stone and when the builders get ready to have conferences, they don’t call us. The World leaders don’t call Christians except to say the Invocation! “Bishop So and So, would you mind opening with ‘prah’? and then sit down -- we run this show!” See the true people of God are rejected among the builders. They say they going to have a conference on race relations but they don’t want Farrakhan.

See I’m a rejected stone. But God has put something in me for America and for the World. They’ve been beating up on me in the media almost daily for thirteen years. But look in my face -- I’m not worried, I’m not even fazed by what they say. You know why? It’s because of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. See when I called the Million Man March, I was only a vessel, but I know I can do all things, not some things, I can do all things through Christ because He’s got power now over everything. So If I am His and He is mine, then what is there that is impossible to me? So you who claim that you are Christian, I want you to take the impossible task and prove Christ’s presence and power.

Last thing I want to say: Racism has to end because all races have a beginning and all races have an ending. But when you meet Christ, and walk through the door you can come to Him as you are. But when you meet Him and go through on the other side, there is no Jew, no Greek. There is no bond, there is no free, there’s no male and no female. ALL become one in Him. I don’t want to look at the door and talk about how pretty the door looks. I don’t want to praise the door and say, “The door sure is fine!” I want to walk in the door. I want to be consumed by my Lord and Savior. I want to be so consumed by Him that I am in His body. That when they see me, they see HIM. Then I can testify that I have met our Lord and Savior, Jesus, The Christ, that One anointed to crush wickedness. Now I shall crush it in my life and crush it in the schools, and crush it on the streets, and crush it in City Hall, crush it in the City Council, and then we’re going to move on to the State and crush it and crush wickedness. Father Pflager said it: “Righteousness.” That’s the key. That’s where the power is. Let’s make up our minds. Black, brown, red, yellow, white, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, male, female, Jew, gentile, muslim, whatever we are, if we come to that One that God sent into the world to save us from the foolishness of ourselves and to save us from the fall of this world, then we can become One in Him, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Praise His Holy Name. Thank you for listening.

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