Organized Religion Is Tired

I would rather go
to a church like the one featured in the Blues Brothers
because I just get tired of listening to all these others.
I'd rather listen to a preacher like James Brown
because he speaks with passion,
speaks like he knows what's going down.
He's not caught up with the world going round,
and I don't have to wonder if he is one I can believe.
The truth with which he speaks is easy to receive
and follow, follow, follow on to a brighter tomorrow.

Unlike those preachers who preach the WWJD
without a well-founded idea of what the Hell
it means to them, James would be speaking unlike
some cliche Southern Baptist preacher speeding
past my Chevrolet in his brand new Lexus that is a shiny gray
like the silver spoon stuck so far down his throat when he was born
that by the time he could speak, it was only with scorn.
The belief system that meters his rhythm is just enough
to balance his checkbook without taking one look
at the Good Book or feeling the spirit move through grooves
or get-ups people wear to show off at the church affair, but
You better leave that girl alone! If you're wondering what I'm wishin',
it's just that like Arrested Development I am fishin'
for a new religion. One that might instill a might
that the world has made me forget and I regret
to relay to you that I just lost respect
for respective figures of authority when they'd say to me,
Matthew, it's okay; I'm your mother, I'm your father,
I'm your preacher, I'm your teacher--

But that's nonsense! You're just teaching me not to remember
or teaching me to sever the umbilical cord
that links me back to my creator.
You're teaching me there's nothing new,
but before I knew what teachers tried to teach,
I knew I could dream my way into a better way
of living so large it would make my God laugh.
And it's okay that you still don't get it
It's okay that I'm gonna have to wear the break beats

like boots on my own feet when I march
into the bank and demand a loan on my good looks alone
Tell them to put it under M to the A double T, H, E,
double and You had better believe they gave me the A-
men when I asked for it I told them I was from New York City
where his seed met with her seed to create the heresy of me before
they were married but from love into love made I was
the spade with which they fought against the rest of the world
and now my seed will grow in the soil of my own belief

Giving me and the people relief from the fear
with which so many have been indoctrinated
because the religion I have lost in my dreams
will be the belief on which I have founded my love--
From whence we all came is one and the same
and our umbilical connection to the everlasting will
be the hymnal from which our souls will sing and the praise
will raise us all to higher ground with the sound reason
that only love can bring, and the eternal pleasing will
make our bond ring like the rings of our Milky Way,
and the only thing brighter than today
will be the glory of our tomorrow
of rediscovered love For-Ever.