Since her death, Maya Angelou has been greatly celebrated around the world and that is an appropriate response in my mind. Maya was a poet, a prophet, a celebrity, and a grand dame. She was also a lifelong follower of Jesus. Raised in Stamps, Arkansas, by her grandmother, Maya spent much of her childhood within the warm embrace of a small African Methodist Episcopal Church — at least six hours each Sunday according to her own writing. In the last half of her life, she lived in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and was a steadfast member of a black Baptist Church. And yet despite this religious pedigree, Angelou could be very critical of the church. In one of her books, she wrote a rather biting poem titled “Savior,” where the poet laments the petulance of priests and the boredom of ritual. Sh…