Pastor Jamal Bryant: 'Black Lives Matter' is the first movement not led by Church in the US

Pastor Jamal Bryant challenged the American clergy's obvious absence in the Black Lives Matter movement to take to the streets and join the fight for civil rights.

The megachurch pastor and founder of Baltimore's Empowerment Temple AME Church, also known for his active participation in the Black Lives Matter movement, raised his observations on the glaring absence of the Church during a discussion with other preachers and co-hosts of FOX's faith-based newly-launched show, "The Preachers."

"The thing that I really relish in this dialogue is historians long after us will footnote that this [Black Lives Matter] is the very first movement of civil rights in America not led by the Church," said the pastor before throwing out his challenge to fellow church leaders.

"I want to speak to clergy, black and white, if you want to heal America and change a generation, take your robe off and go hit the street corner and do something that is gonna change where it is that we are going," challenged Bryant.

Although not part of the show, another megachurch pastor previously talked about how pastors "led the way" in shaping America's history.

Speaking on another program, "Pathway to Victory," Robert Jeffress of Dallas' First Baptist Church said last month that pastors played a crucial role during the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement.

Jeffress' chosen location for his church, the metropolis of Dallas, also played a role in the series of gun shooting violence that wracked the country when a black gunman shot down five white policemen during a Black Lives Matter protest held July 7.

The 25-year-old gunman, Micah Xavier Johnson, reportedly "wanted to kill white people, especially white officers" after the separate shootings by white cops of two African-Americans, Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge and Philando Castile of Minnesota.