According to Antioch’s website, its early leaders “stressed the dignity of work and honest labor.” By contrast, Trinity’s website emphasizes God’s displeasure with “America’s economic mal-distribution.” It’s not surprising, then, that President Obama would see a government-run jobs program as the key to ending the current economic recession whereas Mr. Cain would look to private industry.

An Obama vs. Cain contest couldn’t be cast as a referendum on a black man’s qualification to hold the highest office in the land. Instead it would be a choice between two black men who see everything—from the role of government in a free society, to the very definitions of life and family—almost completely differently.

For at least two generations, blacks have been taken for granted by Democrats and ignored by Republicans. Most blacks have looked the other way regarding their convictions about life and family when they have cast their votes. They have flocked to the polls for figures like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, whose liberal views on social issues have little relation to their own. The option of Mr. Cain on the ballot might cause them to think twice.