A decade after Reverend Ike’s death, his son writes about his impact on Black church

[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nn(RNS) — For 40 years, Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II, or Reverend Ike as he would come to be known, preached prosperity from the pulpit of the United Palace Theater in Harlem, New York. Every Sunday, the popular preacher distilled his secrets for attaining financial success to a congregation of 5,000 mostly Black people.“Close your eyes and see green … Money up to your armpits, a roomful of money, and there you are, just tossing around in it like a swimming pool,” he said during a 1972 sermon.
He was a “cheeky man,” joked his son Xavier Eikerenkoetter, who wrote “Reverend Ike: An Extraordinary Life of Influence” with the motivational speaker Mark Victor Hansen. The book traces his late father’s life, “the first Black man in America to preach positive self-image psychology to the Black masses within a church setting,” as he described himself.
Eikerenkoetter started writing the book a few years after his father passed in 2009 but left it unfinished because it was too early and painful to delve into his father’s past, he said. Still, he felt indebted to his father and wanted to highlight the reverend’s influence on today’s prosperity gospel, as well as how his views on race influenced that theology.
Xavier Eikerenkoetter. (Courtesy photo)
“His story needed to be told, and …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]