Ray Hagins looks before Jesus to ancient Egypt for his teachings
By Bill Beene Of the St. Louis American
Pastor Ray Hagins says his Afrikan Village sanctuary isn’t different than any other church.
Congregants pray, worship, fellowship, sing and seek knowledge of bettering themselves and society.
But a closer look does reveal a difference.
The spiritual symbol of the church is the ankh – the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for “life” – rather than a cross, and Hagins preaches primarily from Husia: Sacred Wisdom of the Ancient Egyptians, a spiritual text by Maulana Kagenga.
The alter consists of a Kwanzaa table with African masks. A red, black and green Pan-African flag hangs in the sanctuary, as do images of ancestors and black achievers.
Hagins also preaches from the Bible and Koran, and explains that he will preach from anything with truth in it.
Still, he maintains that, unlike in other religions, he doesn’t tell people what to think, but rather how to think.
“My favorite phrase when I’m teaching is: ‘Don’t take my word for it – go and check it out for yourself,’” he said, sitting in the basement of the Afrikan Village, at 3520 N. Newstead in North St. Louis.
“We don’t try to control people – we’re trying to teach people how to think for themselves and how to apply that to their lives,” he said.
Hagins has a doctorate in sacred religion from Trinity Theological Seminary in Newburgh, Indiana, though he has forsaken his formal studies for teachings in what he calls “spirituality.”
The difference between religion and spirituality, he said, is that the former is a man-made doctrine while the latter is cosmological, of the universe.
Hagins said he isn’t anti-Christ in his teachings, but, rather ante-Christ – as in before Christ.
“What I’m trying to do here at the Afrikan Village is return our people back to the spirituality that we had before religion came on the scene,” Hagins said.
“Spirituality teaches that inside you – your inner-most being – there’s a part of you called intuition. That is not controlled by religion, information or data – intellect is.
“Intuition is that part of us that God reserves to speak to and guide us. We need to understand that God is not outside of us, though he is not completely contained in us,” he said, reasoning that “God is spirit, and He is part of that part of us that is spirit.”
Hagins said he did preach more traditional religion for more than 34 years, before his thinking changed, which changed his teachings.
That “ante-Christian” thinking began to take shape when he moved to St. Louis from Paterson, New Jersey in July 1996 and joined Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church the following year.
Hagins said his departure from religion found him outside of Hopewell’s pulpit.
The next year Hagins started preaching on an interim basis at Ephesus Missionary Baptist Church, but started his own church when legal church documents allegedly couldn’t be produced.
He called the new church “New Ephesus” before renaming it the Afrikan Village. He said his congregation reminded him that Ephesus was a city in Greece and that the sanctuary’s name should reflect the African descent of its congregation.
At Afrikan Village, Hagins also does counseling, family crisis intervention, educational tours to Egypt (or Kemet), internet radio and TV broadcast. He’s also a regular on FOXY 95.5’s Michael Baisden radio show.
When Hagins isn’t serving as the Afrikan Village’s spiritual leader and chief elder, he’s writing or giving lectures, workshops, seminars and conferences.
On June 8 through June 10, he will present his First Ever Convocation of The Afrikan Village. The theme is “Liberation as a Nation, Sharpening the Vision.” The convocation will feature several speakers from around the country, as well as the host pastor.
For more information on the Afrikan Village or the convocation, visit www.wblr.com