A reader, contra my assertion the other day that Rev. Wright’s immense success would not have come about if he hadn’t appealed to black racial solidarity:
John,
I’m not convinced that appealing to black solidarity is necessarily the reason for TUCC’s success. While there are successful black churches who preach separatism and black nationalism, there are many successful black churches that preach a message of racial reconciliation. Pastors are among the most successful entrepreneurs in the black community regardless of their political and racial ideologies and many churches own businesses and commercial & residential real estate. Here in the Detroit area, Wendell Anthony, the Ellis family at Greater Grace Baptist, and Keith Butler have all built and pastored successful churches that provide the same kind of community services that TUCC’s provides, and certainly in the case of Rev. Anthony and Rev. Butler, you couldn’t find two people with more divergent views. Anthony heads the local branch of the NAACP and hosted Rev. Wright at their big dinner recently, while Rev. Butler is politically conservative and a Republican. Butler founded the nondenominational Word of Faith International Christian Center which has 22,000 members.
[Me] Interesting. Be nice to get some numbers on this. How many other Rev. Wrights are out there preaching the gospel of the “African homeland” to black congregations? Versus how many preaching personal salvation and colorblind charity? I have no idea, just curious.
And then, going forward, I wonder how many pastors are looking at Rev. Wright’s mercs and million-dollar pad and thinking “Hey …”