ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the notion of identity salience beyond the congregation and its immediate members to the community writ large. It examines why some observers of the black church, particularly in both the black and white media, so give certain black pastors, for whom there is a documented record of exaggeration and less-than-spiritual behaviours, a non-sceptical "pass" on accountability. Charisma creates loyalty to the leader, which is to say it reorders internally the role attachments within hierarchies of identities for followers who are attracted to such a leader. Indeed, consider elements of Stone Eddie's admittedly laudatory profile of Jesse Jackson, one illustrating the description of charisma by Max Weber and Ernest R. House. House has discussed the fine line that has to be drawn between racial unity within a minority group for the sake of achieving collective benefits versus the tyranny of racial identity salience over the individual's right to critical discernment and disagreeing with leaders.
