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Some people, including members of the United Church of Christ, have scoffed at Wright for speaking to his community first and foremost without “speaking truth to power.” The truth is that he has established (or at least re-presented in a compelling way) a counter-narrative within the black community that God wants them to be free from Pharoah’s lashes. That is intolerable to the powers and principalities of our nation. It rejects the easy oneness of the post-racial narrative and perhaps more important, the fiction that all Americans are happy with their social and economic lots. Unlike the preaching of John Hagee or Rod Parsley, Wright’s preaching challenges its hearers to think about the arrangements of money and power that sustain our social order and decide if they are what God has invited us to create for ourselves.
It’s angry! Controversial! You might not agree with it! Clear your browser history if you run for office!
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