Kirk Franklin Calls Out Christians For “Weaponizing Marriage” and Singleness, Supporting “Problematic” Celebrities: “We’re So Thirsty As Christians” [Video]

Kirk Franklin has some interesting words for some Christians and their beliefs.

The 54-year-old gospel artist/producer recently sat down with Cam Newton for his “Funky Friday” podcast and took a moment to call out “Western Christianity.” Franklin did not spare the feelings of the religion’s followers and blasted them for multiple reasons, including “weaponizing marriage” and supporting “problematic” celebrities.

“I believe that marriage has been weaponized in Western Christianity,” he said. “It’s very much that ‘You living in sin, you need to get married,’ without realizing that marriage doesn’t fix sin,” Franklin said.

He then spoke about his own marriage and the challenges they had to face in the beginning.

“[Tammy Collins] and I have had to walk through deep waters of a lot of the bad beginnings of religious dogma,” he added. “That’s why it is very important for people to understand the fullness of faith and to not allow the culture of Christianity to dictate what God wants for them.”

Franklin continued, “Don’t be no 30-35 year old single Black woman and go to the family reunion. All the older women are gonna do nothing but they gonna look at you and wonder and question you and challenge you. ‘Why you not married?’ It’s a prerequisite for identity and value that if you don’t have a man or you don’t have kids, that something about you is broken. Do you understand how dysfunctional these messages are?”

The “Smile” singer also gave a personal example about a friend being ridiculed in ministry and was told they couldn’t take certain positions because they were single.

“‘We’re not going to let you work with the youth ministry if you single, you can’t do this if you single,’” he said. “And so what people do, they quickly get married thinking that they’re fulfilling God’s will for their lives, but they are fulfilling man’s dogma. You can be single and be used by God. You can be single and have purpose. Being married is not a prerequisite for God’s hand on your life. It is not, but we’ve weaponized it.”

Additionally, Franklin took another jab about Christians elsewhere in the interview for rallying behind celebrities, such as Kanye West, who are deemed “problematic.”

“We’re so thirsty as Christians. We’re so thirsty for attention that we’ll tag on to anybody who gives a little bit of hint that they rock with us. [But] we don’t do life with them. We just kind of rest in their celebrity. I saw it first hand many times with Kanye,” Franklin said. “He’s such a talent, he’s such a gift, there were many times that the faith community was so excited to latch on that nobody asked the hard questions. Nobody talked about accountability, nobody talked about the community around this individual. We become field negroes and we miss the bigger picture, we miss The Great Commission.”

He added, “Sometimes when somebody acknowledges or says that they are Christian or represent their faith, everybody in the Christian community wants to jump on it. You also see that even in the white Christian community. If Donald Trump says that he’s a Christian, then all the evangelicals vote for him even though there are so many things about his life and lifestyle that are problematic to the Christian ideal.”

Nevertheless, Franklin sparked conversation between social media users with most agreeing with his statements and others questioning his motives, especially since he was previously linked to Kanye.