Quote Of The Day


Bishop T.D. Jakes

"Though the black community was served well by ministers who doubled as political leaders in an era when the pulpit was often our only podium, today, the African-American community is no longer limited to the pulpit as our primary lecture post. We now have thousands of African-American politicians elected to serve our interests, nonprofit leaders funded to lead our communal efforts and academics educated to research our options, and convey their findings to the world.

Just as the black community is not monolithic in its religious choices, personal opinions, or political affiliations, the black clergy is not limited in its sermonic topics to one perspective.

Enforcing unanimity of voices is a dangerous proposition. Throughout our history, various voices have served our communities well simultaneously. Booker T. Washington shared the public spotlight with W.E.B. DuBois. Ida B. Wells worked against the lynching of black men, while Mary Church Terrell worked on behalf of black women.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s voice calling for nonviolent integration echoed alongside that of Malcolm X demanding freedom to do for self by any means necessary. As it is in all American communities, no one person or perspective speaks for all African-Americans.

If we as African-American ministers allow anyone to script our sermons for us, where will it end? I respect each minister's views and recognize his right to tout them, but it is dangerous to try to force all members of any group to align themselves with anyone's viewpoints, including my own.

Each of us must answer the call that he or she receives from God, not the direction of any man. In the final analysis, no singular approach will end America's most pressing problems.

Rather, a multiple approach that includes direct assistance, personal empowerment lessons and self-help initiatives as well as speeches, marches and organized resistance, will help to dismantle the political and civic structures working against us. We are better together than we are apart." – Bishop T.D. Jakes, arguing that black American preachers should focus less on politics