Poor people want to be poor; if they just worked harder they could have more.

There's a separation of church and state. If you want the perks that churches have traditionally received, then abide by the rules. If you're going to be involved in the political process, even in soft ways, then surrender the privileges. Let ministers pay income tax on all of their income. Let churches pay income tax, let them pay property taxes. They can't have it both ways. You can't pat the politicians on the back, break the rules, and then get all these perks.

You get a sense that it's okay to have good stuff and still claim a relationship with God. So enslaved Africans rethought their predicament in a way that entailed getting good stuff, material stuff, and having a deep relationship with God. There was no contradiction. And the idea just moves forward from there.

The ministers argue that within the context of scripture there's a requirement given by God that you've got to give ten percent of your income to the church. And if you give ten percent - here's the hook - God is going to reward your faithfulness by giving you that ten percent back, and a whole lot more.

The key figure in the Christian faith involves a story of suffering so that others do well. You're only going to get so much liberation, you're only going to get so much transformation, from a system that is based on suffering.

I think of the US as an empire. The UK at one point, because of its reach, was an empire. But these megachurches - for me the concern is to not assume they have more authority than they actually have, to not give them a kind of reach that they really don't possess.

So long as there's been black churches in the United States, there's been a relationship between spiritual well-being and material acquisition. This has always been the case.