When I was little, I grew up in a very religious family. My parents took us to church all the time, and I loved going to church. I loved singing all the songs. I loved all the people in the church. I loved hearing all the stories in the Bible. I even learnt all the names of all the books of the Bible off by heart when I was about ten years old.
My mother had rules about what is sin. I was told it was a sin to smoke cigarettes. It was a sin to drink alcohol. It was a sin to go to the cinema. It was a sin to tell a lie, etc.
Many years later, I discovered that my mother had told me many lies about things related to beliefs in the Bible. She used to tell me things like: “Sunday is the Lord’s day, Sunday is the day of rest, you must not buy on a Sunday, you must not sell on a Sunday, you must not work on a Sunday, and you must not play sport on a Sunday.” There is no such word as “Sunday” in the King James Bible even. In the Bible it is called the first day of the week, and in the Bible the days go from sunset to sunset, not midnight to midnight. So my mother lied to me all the time. I have heard some preachers do the same sort of thing.
God himself made the sun go dark in Egypt to show the Egyptians that the sun is not a god. God even said that you must not mention the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of your mouth. December 25th is the day of the rebirth of the sun god in the Roman calendar. That is sun worship. Sun worship is death penalty in the Bible. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
When I was about eleven years old, I was at a friend’s house, and he played me a record of Pat Boone singing “Bernadine.” There was a photo of Pat Boone’s face right on the record cover. That felt so wonderful to me. At another friend’s house, he played me a record of Elvis Presley singing “Jailhouse rock.” That record had a tremendous impact on me. I had never even heard guitar playing before. That song got me hooked on rock and roll music. At another friend’s house I heard the song “Oh Boy” by the Crickets. I heard lots of songs at other people’s houses too, songs like “Ma, he’s making eyes at me” and “Whatever will be, will be.”
When I was about six years old, my parents were very poor and couldn’t even afford a radio, but I used to hear my mother singing lots of songs in the kitchen while I was playing with my dinky toys in the dirt. She claimed to be “Saved” and I heard her singing songs like: “Twas on the Isle of Capri that I found her” “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me ‘til I come marching home.” “Be a little forgiving, take me back in your heart” “When it’s springtime in the Rockies” “Have I told you lately that I love you?” “I’ll be loving you always” “A kiss is still a kiss, as time goes by” “Give me my boots and saddle” “Down Mexico way” “I’m an old cowhand, from the Rio Grande” “Begin the Begin” “I can’t give you nothing but love Baby” “He’s the lily of the valley” “Oh happy day, that fixed my choice” “I tried the broken cisterns Lord” and lots more.
Some years later, my mother’s brother gave them an old radio and I used to hear my dad listening to the BBC news, and for a few seconds before the news I heard a marching band playing, which sounded very nice to me. Then on the weekends I heard my dad listen to sports on the radio. At night I heard my parents listen to the radio shows about a Journey to Mars and the Day of the Triffids, or something. Then there were stories about people who were spies trying to get into Britain during the Second World War. The name Somerset Maugham rings a bell.
So, when I was about eleven years old, after hearing Jailhouse Rock, I started listening to the radio. I remember telling my brother that I heard a new Elvis song called “Dreaming Eyes.” I guess I couldn’t understand what he was singing about, because many years later I discovered that the song he was singing was actually called “Treat me nice.”
So for many years after that, I started listening to the top ten hit parade, which was a half hour show, once a week, and heard lots and lots of songs. In our country we only had one English radio station, so everything was on that one channel. News, sports, church services, request programmes, the hit parade, etc.
Later on black and white TV came to our country, but my dad didn’t want a TV, so my focus was on the songs on the radio.
Then I started singing the songs I heard on the radio, and that was when everything “hit the fan.” All of a sudden it was a “BIG SIN” to sing love songs.
I didn’t feel like I was sinning. Listening to the radio was not on the “SIN LIST.” At one stage when I sang the pop songs at home, my mother was dancing around to the beat, but when I started singing on the TV, she kept coming against me. She kept telling me “You must uplift Jesus.” But it was a worldly programme, not a religious one. In fact the manager at the TV station kept bugging me to sing the Beatles songs, but I was into country music, having been influenced by Jim Reeves, before I had even heard of the Beatles.
I was nineteen years old when I was singing on the TV, and one night I was invited to sing a song at a church in Bulawayo. After I sang a song, an evangelist preached. Then he preached “hell fire and brimstone” and I could feel the flames under my seat. The next night I sang on the TV as I always did, and half way through the TV show the evangelist came on and gave his testimony. Then I had to come on right after him singing “Honeycomb won’t you be my Baby.” Everything was done “live” but I couldn’t change the song at the last minute because the presenter of the show announced I was to sing that song. If I had known the evangelist was coming on the show, I would have sung a gospel song.
I don’t like confrontations with people, and I knew he had to go to the church that night, so I stayed as long as I could in the studio. Then they started putting the light off, so I had to leave. As I came through the big sound proof door, there he was! My heart just sank. I thought he was going to preach hell fire and brimstone at me, but he didn’t do that. He just spoke softly to me and suggested songs like “Wings of a dove” or “It is no secret,” etc, but I told him I had already sung those songs before on the TV program. However, after that I felt so bad that I quit singing on the TV. Later on I lost my day job too, and ended up with no money and no income at all.
Many years later I met the evangelist again in South Africa, and he had a third wife. One time a church in South Africa a woman came to me and said she was his first wife, and she was very angry at him for leaving her. So he has had sex with at least three different women, but I was a big sinner for singing love songs. I was just nineteen at the time, and I had never even had sex. So everybody has their own standards as to what is sin and what is not sin. God is the judge.
Many, many years later, a Bible school in America gave me a degree based on everything I had tried to do for Jesus, and my mother criticized my degree, so I cancelled my degree. They gave me points for song writing because I used to write hundreds of gospel songs. So I asked my mother to send me a tape of her gospel songs, so I can see how come my gospel songs are all bad, but until the day that she died, she never sent me the tape that I asked her for. I felt she should back up her accusations with an example. In Canada a rich guy told me my tape wasn’t worth listening to. So it seems like when people get rich, it makes them better than me, who was poor at the time.
So, I don’t understand all the hatred of the church people. I have been through so much hatred from so many church people, that it has affected my mind. I still believe in Jesus, and I know that he went through a lot of hatred from the religious people of his day. In fact they had him crucified because he healed people on the Sabbath day. To them it was a “BIG SIN” to heal people on the Sabbath day. So everybody has a different opinion as to what is sin, and what is not sin.
I am going to back to my story now. When I was twenty years old, I was forced to do military training with the Rhodesian Air Force. When I was there, I heard people using the name of “Jesus” as if he belonged in the toilet. That upset me. I grew up going to church where they used to sing songs like “His name is the best name, the best name of them all. Jesus blessed Saviour, at his pierced feet I fall. Healer, sanctifier, on the living Christ I gladly call, for his name, is the best name, the best name of them all.”
When they used the name of Jesus in a bad way, I got very angry. I said to myself “If they are going to use his name like that, then I am not going to sing their songs anymore.” So I gave away all my pop songs books and switched to singing only gospel songs. I had about a thousand pop songs that I had written out by hand in my exercise books.
Many years later when my mother criticized my degree, I stopped writing gospel songs. I used to play guitar and sing gospel songs at an old age home, but when the accusations hit me, I bought an electronic keyboard and went back to the old age home for five years singing love songs. So whether I sing gospel songs or love songs, I still get criticized by church people. God is the judge.
Jesus taught that a man must leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife. So Jesus believed in marriage. Paul said that husbands must love their wives. So what is the big sin about singing love songs? Why all this hatred towards me? So I have changed my beliefs many times according to what God has ministered to me.
I have read the Bible many times, and I have seen through all the false teachings of the church people. Most of the things that church people believe are totally different to what is written in the Bible. Beloved, read the Bible for yourself, and go to Israel and go to Rome, then you might understand how come I am reacting like I do. One day we all have to give an account before Jesus. Jesus is going to be the BIG judge. Good luck on judgment day. Repent and be baptized.
