On church, black and white

Much of what is preached from the pulpits (though they never seem to use them) of black churches is sound, Christ-centered and true. Whereas, in my opinion, popular white preachers often seem to be no more than positive-mental-attitude-snake-oil-salesmen.

- Fr Joseph Huneycutt

(Think he’s referring to Joel Osteen? And Jim Bakker in his heyday?)

Yes but you don’t see a lot of change for the better in that community even 50 years after the civil-rights movement*. It may be like in white Appalachia: the mountain or slum preacher and his church are part of the culture but there may be an attitude that you have your fun by sinning when you’re young, then ‘get saved’/go to church when you’re old, along with a kind of social pressure not to succeed because that would be selling out/‘trying to be white’.

Another solution to go with Christianity: black libertarianism.

*I know that even before that not all American blacks were poor. Some, including the clergy such as Martin Luther King, were part of an élite — segregated but doing very well, thank you.