The prosperity gospel and its purveyors are worldwide and account for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism, the global religious movement prosperity preachers come from.

Black churches have long been targets of white supremacists who burned and bombed them in an effort to terrorize the black communities those churches anchored. One of the most egregious terrorist acts in U.S. history was committed against a black church in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.

Bernice King, daughter of MLK, is an assistant pastor at New Birth.

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