“Yes, I’m angry I’m mad as hell,” he said during one sermon. In the series, Price is both meticulous scholar, citing footnotes from century-old tomes on race one moment, and a passionate, pained black man the next. It has examined the support Christian churches gave to slavery and church documents banning the sale of buildings to “Negroes.” It has included teachings of the Nation of Islam declaring God as black and the devil as white-and of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which until 1978 denied the priesthood to blacks. More than three years in the making, drawing on hundreds of books and articles, the series has unflinchingly scrutinized racist practices of numerous faiths. But Price said he couldn’t not heed the call, believing God chose him because he’s established, influential, unbeholden to anyone and-at least until the series began-connected with the evangelical community’s white power brokers. He didn’t want the controversy, didn’t need the hassle. Price heard God telling him to present an in-depth teaching on religion and race. Hagin declined to comment, but a spokesman said the remarks were misconstrued and “we love everybody.”)īut there was more to do. (Price never publicly identified the pastor on the tape, which he aired in 1997, but Hagin acknowledged it was him. Those actions prompted half of the African American ministers on the executive board of one of Price’s organizations to resign in protest. failed to recant his remarks, apologizing only for hurt feelings, Price launched a boycott-throwing out Hagin materials from his church bookstore, cutting off financial support and even removing the father’s name from one of his buildings. He thought: “My gosh, I’ve been standing next to you all these years and didn’t know you had a gun to my head.”Īfter Hagin Jr. He had opened his home and heart to the family and had, by his own estimates, contributed nearly $1 million to the Oklahoma-based Hagin ministry.īut the younger Hagin-a nationally known minister, a man of God, a presumed believer in the one body of Christ-had been caught on tape telling his congregation that he did not believe in race-mixing and had taught his daughter from her kindergarten years that she was not to date blacks. Price had long regarded the senior Hagin as a seminal influence in showing him the power of faith teachings. Price recognized the voice of the pastor giving it: Kenneth Hagin Jr. In 1992, a group of black ministers gave him a recording of a controversial sermon on race. And because I responded they put me back in the field.” “I could have kept quiet about it in essence I was the house nigger,” he declared early in the series. “For him to break the silence on the reality of racism, even within the evangelical camp, is a gesture of courage and is rooted in deep, deep personal pain,” Franklin said. ![]() ![]() capitalizing on white evangelical America’s need for a representative black face,” said Robert Franklin, president of the Atlanta-based Interdenominational Theological Center, a consortium of six African American seminaries. “There was a sense that Price was a religious Uncle Tom. ![]() Until the series, Price had never addressed the problem of race relations in his 25-year ministry. Most conspicuously, however, the series has dramatically reshaped Price’s image in the African American community of being uninterested and isolated behind the high white walls and security gates of the Crenshaw Christian Center. With its uncompromising tone, the series-which ends this month after 76 consecutive weeks-has toppled lifelong friendships and professional associations between Price and his white evangelical associates, as well as some of his black charismatic colleagues. ![]() The traumatic event prompted Price to carry out what he calls an “assignment from God”: a discomfiting, exhaustively detailed televised series of weekly sermons on “Race, Religion and Racism” that he has broadcast to 10 foreign countries and a national audience of 15 million.
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