I grew up on the West Side - the "near West Side," [in Detroit], as they say - in what would be considered now the inner city.

What I'm talking about is both political and then also extra-political. Because what Donald Trump is doing is not simply to be measured in terms of its political effect. It's the very spiritual uplift of the nation. It's the very tenor and tone, morally speaking, of what this country is about. And so the unleashing of these fierce and ferocious beliefs have a potential impact that is quite deleterious, quite negative, quite destructive. And I think we have to say something.

When I was 12 years old, my pastor came to the church: Dr. Fredrick Samson. And that was revolutionary because he mentored me and I got a chance to see up close the impact of a rhetorical genius.

I've been a social gospel-er and a person who sees politics as a central dynamic to the encoding of religious rhetoric.

All Americans deserve an equal crack at what it means to be a - having - having resources in your own home and in your state and in your country.

My church is the world! I want to bring the gospel to as broad and as interesting an audience as possible.

Obama sees the world in two ways: from the black perspective and from the white perspective. He was raised as a black man, whose culture he has self-consciously adopted. But he was reared largely by his white grandparents. He lived a kind of racially bipartisan experience, and he will be able to speak a language that resonates with both communities.