More than 60 percent of First Corinthian’s new members since 2010 had never been baptized, according to church statistics, and that number attests to Mr. Walrond’s talent at engaging the “unchurched” of all races. To all his followers, Mr. Walrond’s preaching arises from black Christianity’s prophetic tradition, with its searing criticism of privilege and belief in a liberating God.
“I’m very clear about the fact that this is an African-American worship experience,” Mr. Walrond put it. “Truth is truth, wherever it came from. But maybe what made Jesus so unusual was less his divinity than his humanity. People encountered him in the most human ways. And it’s our humanity that binds us up together.”