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A powerful message
By BABITA PERSAUD, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- "Touch someone next to you and say, 'I'm ready,' " shouted the man at the microphone. "Let's turn the Ice Palace into a hot palace! Into a hot temple for God." Juanita Bynum had yet to take the stage Wednesday night, but the 19,000 people packing the arena already were in a lather. There are lots of evangelists who make the circuit, but few have a following to match Bynum's. She calls herself the "prophetess." Her Web site told followers to wear white, so they did. Mothers wore white dresses or white suits. Grandmothers clutched Bibles along with their white purses. Most who had come for the kickoff of the four-day Women Weapons of Power Conference were black women, but race was not the subject at hand. Empowerment was what mattered. Women, Bynum preached, should not be slaves to men. "She says women don't have to be in the pews; they can be on stage, holding the microphone," said Earica Alexander-Smith of Tampa, who was jumping up and down. Bynum, dressed in a white robe, told the crowd her story. How she was on welfare, which she called her "life jacket." How her marriage fell apart. How she became depressed. How she started wondering, "Am I not sexy enough?" She turned to "sugar daddies," she said, and became promiscuous after her divorce, dating man after man for material wealth. No more, Bynum preached. Save yourself for the right man, she said. "She just makes you want to live the holy life," said Jackie Robinson, 27, who said Bynum helped her focus on finding the right man, one who was responsible. "A good man," said Robinson, who now has four kids. At Bynum's first conference in 1993, she drew about 3,000 people. More people than that filled an overflow room Wednesday night at the Tampa Convention Center, where they watched her preach via television hookup. In her former life, Bynum was a homemaker, a hairdresser and a flight attendant. Then she joined the New Greater Bethel Ministries in New York. She soon discovered she had a talent for ministering. It led her to the stage and later to television, where she is a regular on the Trinity Broadcast Network. Bynum made her grand entrance onto the national evangelist stage in 1998, at a conference for single men and women held in Dallas. The headliner was Pentecostal preacher T.D. Jakes, author of Woman, Thou Art Loose. But Bynum stole the show. She delivered her now famous "No More Sheets" sermon. She shouted and waved a handkerchief and even brought out bedsheets for emphasis. Women shouldn't sleep around, she said. They should take control of their lives and focus on family and God. The sermon spawned a video -- called simply "the video" by her fans -- and a book: No More Sheets: The Truth About Sex. And a following that includes actor Angela Bassett, singer Mary J. Blige and homemaker Regina Ferrell, who stood in a front seat Wednesday night with tears streaming down her face. "Tears of joy," she said.
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From the Times |
