Desegregating America's most Segregated Hour

An interesting discussion here on the opportunity presented by the Wright Controversy. The discussants are Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr. of Hope Christian Church in Maryland and High Impact Leadership; The Very Rev. Tracey Lind of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio; Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton University; and Michael Cromartie, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center

Needless to say and as others have observed in the past few weeks, the intersection of race, religion, and politics is particularly volatile so I commend the participants for their sober discussion.

Bishop Jackson recently wrote a column critical of Senator Obama with which I disagree on several accounts (e.g. "Some may even have seen his relationship with Dr. Wright as a kind of spiritual adultery---just as dangerous to the nation’s health as Governor Spitzer’s or Governor McGreevy’s sins") but it's worth taking in his perspective.

By way of a plug, one of the things that I admire my current church for is the diversity of ethnicities. Although, having attended predominantly black and predominantly white churches in the past, I recognize that, as Durkheim observed, "religion is an eminently social thing" and in that sense reflects the society within which it functions.