A hostile work place is legally forbidden… Well, we’ve got one better, Seattle’s spiritual community now has a hostile worship place — Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Seattle — and this should be spiritually forbidden. The Senior Pastor, Rev. Dr. Lesile David Braxton’s prayers Sunday were mean-spirited and of the ‘can I get a witness’ fire brand with music and all. Instead of preaching love and offering spiritually fulfilling inspiration, which is one of the reasons most people go to worship services at many religious institutions, he prayed for about 25 minutes asking that those members that disagreed with him meet their ‘just due’. He even encouraged those who came to the altar for prayer to return to their seats and afterwards, in a prayerful plea, encouraged them to turn to each other and tell them “enough is enough.” This is not the spiritual expectation in most churches of love thy neighbor, when they turn to each other for comfort, spiritual fulfillment, and worship. But rather, this was considered by some to be divisive in nature. Oh, by the way, if you don’t like the pastor’s mean-spirited prayers and sermons, he encourages you to find another church. His sermons, according to the unsolicited responses from many that attended the services and others that supplied CDs of the services, were off the hook and just as outrageous. They were filled with perceived threats and intimidating biblically-laced scriptures from the pulpit to cleanse Mt. Zion of those that would seek to destroy from within — as if the door from the church doesn’t swing both ways. “Let’s have a vote,” he exclaimed, and then we will know who you are and then “we will vote you out… Heeeyyy… Can I get a witness?”

In a response letter sent to many members over the weekend in reference to the letter from United Members To Save Mt. Zion, he stated the letter was “untrue” but never offered to clarify nor identify what was “untrue” in the letter. An attorney even got up, can you believe, as part of the worship services (not a called business meeting), to explain a court settlement five years ago about Rev. Laverne Hall’s successful court case against the church. However, the interpretation of the attorney — who stated his law firm did not represent the church in this matter — is different from the interpretation of others regarding the documents contained in King County Superior Court file # 00-2-20353-5 SEA. He stated it was a business decision that would have cost the church thousands of dollars, even though the judge apparently considered the merit of the case and allowed it to continue. Otherwise, why did the pastor request, according to the former chairperson of the deacon board, to settle this case after the pastor’s refusal to answer questions from Rev. Hall’s attorney about moral and personal issues and altercations in Buffalo, NY, his former pastoral city. This church business was discussed before many visitors, including, King County’s top elected lawyer, King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, whom the pastor described as “his good friend” and offered apologies to the prosecutor for him having to listen to ‘all of this’. According to sources, Maleng stayed for both services. This was very unusual since Maleng is not a frequent visitor to Mt. Zion — not even on a Nate Miles orchestrated selected candidates political Sunday at Mt. Zion. Many in the community have often questioned the ‘just us’ unjustified treatment of Blacks from Norm Maleng’s office. Particularly since, in the minds of many African Americans, Maleng’s office has a questionable record when it comes to bringing charges against White police officers who have killed Black men in King County. The latest was the Robert Thomas, Sr. killing by an off-duty King County Deputy Mel Miller that just ended in a civil trial with alleged jury misconduct. They say politics make strange bedfellows, but Norm Maleng and Pastor Leslie David Braxton as friends? The man (Rev. Braxton) preached at Robert Thomas, Sr.’s funeral at Mt. Zion and co-lead hundreds in a community march onto the I-5 freeway. The same man who later didn’t want the Black Press in the community meeting about this incident, and the elected official who wouldn’t bring charges against Robert Thomas, Sr.’s killer are FRIENDS? People have a right to their friends and certainly a right to worship, but the unbelievable and unlikely pairing of Maleng and Braxton? Hello… Amen community… Can we get a witness, help us somebody… Help us prayerfully understand this? Now if the pastor and his extended church family (many shared common relatives, nieces, nephews, etc., if you connect the dots) on the deacon and trustee boards can live with a secret ballot to vacate the pulpit conducted by an independent firm, we believe the community can and, certainly without compromising our journalistic integrity, we believe this Black Press can also. So pastor, will you have the guts to let Mt. Zion’s congregation truly and spiritually decide without threats and fear, and free from intimidation, as you did indeed preach, their vision and future. As your supporters claim, you can get 85% of the vote. And if this is true, what are you afraid of? If you remain, so be it. If you do not, so be it as well. We all will wish you well either way. You are not a full back trying to score in the red zone, nor the linebacker that missed a tackle in a championship game. This is the game of spiritual life and soul scoring. Broken legs from football heal. Broken spiritual fulfillment sometimes heals… particularly in the church community and the general supporting communities! The Black Community needs to heal. A fair and just vacate vote, regardless of the outcome, could heal all once and for all. Let Mt. Zion rejoice and return to its spiritual righteous place in Seattle as one whole church.