The black church is the real guardian of Christian America

In years and decades to come, we’ll remember the last two weeks. The Emanuel A.M.E. massacre, the sudden shift away from the Confederate flag, the Supreme Court’s reaffirmation of the Affordable Care Act and its extension of same-sex marriage to every state. Last Friday there was an awesome funeral service for Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel and one of the victims in the shooting. And all of it while once again black churches have been burning, some under suspicious circumstances.

For all of America’s secularization, actual and expected, each event was resonant with religious significations—and each prompted a wave of public theology. And none more so than Pinckney’s funeral, which saw a small army of clergy, a massive choir, an arena full of mourners, and the president of the United States in the pulpit for the eulogy.

Obama's oration was instantly and rightly hailed as one of his finest, and quite unexampled in the history of presidential addresses. He celebrated the heroic heritage of the African American church, from worshiping in secret before abolition to singing praises publicly after it, from sheltering travelers on the Underground Railroad to housing the foot soldiers of the civil rights battles. Black churches are “places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harm’s way,” he said,