“Christianity is the white man’s religion.” That was Malcolm X’s verdict, and though he meant it to be final, a generation of black Christian leaders decided to treat it as provisional. In 1969, a thirty-one-year-old theologian named James H. Cone published “Black Theology & Black Power,” a short, astringent book that Wright would use as a blueprint for Trinity. Cone proposed a reciprocal arrangement: just as the Black Power movement could find redemption in the Church, so the Church -- dominated and distorted by generations of white men -- could find redemption in the Black Power movement. He wrote that there was “a need for a theology whose sole purpose is to emancipate the gospel from its ‘whiteness’ so that blacks may be capable of making an honest self-affirmation through Jesus Christ.” And he argued that, since African-American suffering was such a powerful metaphor for the suffering of Christ, color-blind Christianity was a contradiction in terms. “To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen,” he wrote. “God has chosen black people!”

Like many brash-sounding manifestos of the era, this one came with fine-print qualifications. Throughout the book, Cone was careful to explain that a black-centered Church need not be a black-separatist Church. And even the simplest phrases -- “black people,” for instance -- turned out to be slippery. It wasn’t about being “physically black,” he wrote. “To be black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are.” In his view, blackness was as radically inclusive as Christianity itself, and just as demanding.

After thinking about it a bit, I suppose I have to grudgingly acknowledge that a windfall profits tax isn't the solution. Like many people, I find the oil companies' profits obscene. But they don't control the market, and, yes, they're in business to make money for shareholders. But that doesn't mean they're totally off the hook. Subsidies? Sayonara. The last thing these guys need are tax breaks. Lawmakers should immediately terminate all government programs that give the oil industry unfair (and unnecessary) advantages.

And like Spider-Man says, with great power comes great responsibility. The oil companies should be required to devote a specific amount of their annual profit to public transportation and alternative energy projects.

Call that a tax if you like. I see it as a recognition of the companies' enormous potential to have a positive effect on society, rather than just being first-class riders on the economic gravy train.