Only 110 of the purported 3,000 parishioners were at the Sunday morning service of the Hope Christian Church in Maryland, despite the daring occasion. Along with 1,500 other ministers across the country, Bishop Harry Jackson was “gonna push the envelope a little bit” on politics, the choir director said.
The members of the congregation, carrying their own Bibles, drifted gradually into the odd-shaped sanctuary, wider than it was long, located in a low, sprawling office building that once served as IBM's regional headquarters. Almost all the worshippers were women, almost all were African American, and because they were so thinly distributed among the blue chairs, the place looked practically empty to the two cameras facing the pulpit, one from Christian television, the other for a documentary by the Public Broadcasting Service. A crew member said something to an assistant pastor, who asked people to move to the center. They dutifully obeyed for the sake of appearances.
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