If you haven’t seen “Preachers of L.A.” (Oxygen, Wed. at 10:00 p.m.), it’s a little closer to “The Real Housewives” franchise than you might expect. In the premiere, one preachers deals with the downside of having a kid out of wedlock, another visits Crips gang members in Compton, and a devoted bachelor preacher wonders if he’ll ever get married again.
I was asked to be a guest blogger for Oxygen and recap the premiere, and you can read a (very edited) version here. Still, you’ll get the idea — preachers are only human, and sometimes they (though not everyone featured on the show, mind you) drive wildly expensive cars, wear watches worth thousands of dollars, and own multimillion dollar houses that beg the question — couldn’t the cost of that Bentley help a lot of poor and hungry people?
I guess everyone prefers the “God wants you to be a millionaire” sermon to one based on biblical teachings about spreading the wealth (screw Deuteronomy 14:28-29 and Deuteronomy 15:11, clearly). Shockingly, it’s a question that’s actually addressed at the end of the episode, which suggests (if the show pulls no punches) this might be a interesting instead of simply glossy. We’ll have to wait and see.
If nothing else, these preachers deal with thoroughly modern problems — in the clip below, Jay Haizlip and his wife discuss the fact that one of their congregants, April, is now David.
Watch the clip below: