Time magazine recently named T.D. Jakes as "America's Best Preacher." On the cover, over a picture of Jakes, the magazine asked "Is this man the next Billy Graham?"
As part of its "America's Best" series, the magazine wondered which preacher is at the top of the game right now. They called Jakes a virtuoso: "Jakes's eccentric pauses, coy glances at his audience, and the occasional odd, Holy-Spirit-inspired stutter that sounds like a skipping CD might normally mystify the nonanointed," Time religion writer David Van Biema says. "And yet somehow, they do not. Like Brando's mumbling or Michael Jordan's outstretched tongue, they are pendants to an overwhelming gift."
Time cited as one of the factors in their selection of Jakes "the extravagant celebratory bounty of black Pentecostal preaching."
"When it comes to rhetoric, says former Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson, "the best Anglo preachers on their best days don't preach as well as a good black preacher on his worst day." ...
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