For African Americans, evil takes the very specific and identifiable form of white supremacy, first through enslavement, then through Jim Crow and lynch mob rule, and into what many today experience as seemingly intractable racial inequality.  Black Americans struggle to reconcile the sin of racism with the idea of a loving and powerful God. Different churches resolve this issue in various ways.   

In churches like Trinity UCC, black folks read the Bible with an eye on what it has to say about experiences of bondage and oppression.  In this way the Bible is both a moral guide and a political text. Even though slaveholders declared that God wanted slaves to obey their masters, black people believed that God wanted them to be free. They believed this because they read the story of Moses.

Though the confederate states claimed that God instituted segregation; black Americans believed differently because they read Amos. Today many black Americans worry when our country engages in self-righteous foreign policy because we have read Isaiah.    

African American religious traditions are rich and complex.  The hope-filled candidacy of Barack Obama is also part of our tradition.  Obama's broad multi-racial coalition makes many African Americans feel like part of the Joshua generation finally laying claim to the American promised land.  But we cannot enter that promised land together if white America refuses to acknowledge the prophetic truths of black religiosity.

We cannot learn from our prophets if we denounce them. Silencing Jeremiah Wright will not makes us forget hundreds of years of racial inequality.  Now is the time to listen to each other carefully.   

I attended Trinity United Church of Christ during the seven years I lived in Chicago.  Although I do not know him personally, I heard Rev. Wright preach on dozens of Sundays.  His sermons soothed my broken heart while I divorced, they eased my mental anguish when my sister was ill, and they helped give me strength as I watched the destructive power of racism, sexism and homophobia within my Chicago community. In short, his words did what a pastor's words are supposed to do.  I am grateful for Jeremiah Wright and for his prophetic witness. 

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton University. She is also a seminarian at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.