Religion: Calvin Marshall: Peace and Power

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Now, says Marshall, black Christians must relearn the wholehearted involvement with religion that typifies the churches' "Aunt Janes,"* and that they lost when some denominations became "too white" in style. Only in a revitalized religion, says Marshall, can blacks find the spiritual energy to win and keep power. Marshall's parting benediction at Sunday services, appropriately, is "Peace and power." His Tuesday-night sermons during Lent dwelt on the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives. "We need the church to be a spiritual organism," shouted Marshall in one sermon, "where the Spirit of God goes out into the broader community and reorders and restructures and radicalizes and revolutionizes that community. That's what Jesus wants, that's what the Gospel is all about."