For decades, progressives have been warning us about the religious right. There is no such outcry when it comes to the religious antics of Senate candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock of Georgia. Taken for granted in all this is that the “Black church” fights for black racial interests. The Times would never write such fawning coverage of a conservative preacher. Journalists celebrate and defend the “Black church,” but have no sympathy for the “white church.”

The Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA) recently bought an abandoned Lutheran church. “Asatru is an ethnic faith of European peoples,” explained AFA official Matt Flavel, “believing our gods are our most ancient ancestors, and basically worshipping them and building our community.” Although it bought a church building, AFA is not a church. The Nation of Islam’s headquarters is a former Orthodox church, but nobody calls the NOI a “blacks-only church.” National media made a big stink about the purchase, calling the AFA a “whites-only church” or even a “white supremacist church.”

Notice the casual description of the AFA as a “hate group” or “white supremacist.” One resident, Peter Kennedy, was upset. “What other religion in the world makes a big deal out of the color of your skin?” he asked in the Star-Tribune. The answer is: just about all of them.

Jews claim to be the Chosen People. The “Black church” is powerful enough to influence a president and may win a Senate race in Georgia. Shintoism and American Indian religions are largely folk-based, not missionary religions that seek converts. Even supposedly universal religions such as Islam are divided on who should be the authority, based on sacred bloodlines. Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam may have seen Islam (or some variation of it) as the key to black emancipation, but the Sultan of Morocco used a slave army composed entirely of blacks as his “Black Guard.”