Pastor’s 52 Week Sermon Series Raises a Tsunami of Complaints
By Winsip Custer CPW News Service
Rev. Buford Baker Batty of the Eighth United Independent Episcopal Congregational Fellowship of Leesburg, Virginia has raised the ire of his church’s many members. On Sunday, January 1st, 2012 Batty announced a new 52 week sermon series in which he will mimic the leading preachers of last 50 years.
“If I wanted to hear Jimmy Swaggart I’d watch TV,” said Billy Mackey a forty-year old Ford automobile salesman and member of Batty’s church. Swaggart was just one of a dozen preachers, priests and pastors that Rev. Batty will mimic. "I'm ecumenical," said Batty.
“I have best captured the essence of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen,” Batty continued as he held an exact replica of Bishop Sheen’s vestments and silver cross. “But I do a heck of a Cardinal Ratzinger,” said Batty noting the excellent stitching quality of the garments made by his wife, Roberta.
“You mean Pope Ratzinger,” I interjected.
“It wouldn’t be proper for me to mimic the Pope,” said Batty, “I might offend my Roman Catholic friends in town, and so I’m mimicking Ratzinger as a Cardinal instead of a Pope.”
Batty also enjoys playing the part of TV evangelist Robert Tilton. “Was there ever a TV preacher that more fittingly lends himself to cartoon characterization?” asked Batty's wife who believes that Rev. Batty's flowing hair looks more like Tilton's than like Billy Grahams. "Especially when he darkens it with shoe polish," she said.
Robert Schuller, Billy Graham, Benny Hinn are all on the docket for Batty’s “Voices of the Faithful” series, but some have expressed concern that his renditions of Bishop TD Jakes, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton will bring picketing by the NAACP for his make-up in blackface. "I wouldn't mind if Jakes, or Sharpton mimicked me. Imitation is the grandest form of flattery," said Batty, "but I don't know where they can get 'white face'."
Dr. Charles Stanley has threatened a law suit and Al Sharpton has already written a letter condemning the sermon series. “I can understand a pastor getting tired of being himself Sunday after Sunday, hell, I'm tired of being me,” said Betty Lou Martin, another church member, "but good God!”
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