The Fate of the Black Church in Black America

Ahh the Black Church. What a huge subject. Let's dive in. TODAY, as in 1945, the Black Church is a spiritual fortress and an economic and political giant. Having survived the Jim Crow era, the Black Church is still the biggest and strongest institution in Black America and is in a powerful position to meet the new challenges of the new century.

In 1945, when EBONY magazine was founded, the Black Church was smaller and more cohesive, with less competition from external forces. Perhaps the most powerful religious leaders in that year were David V. Jemison, the president of the National Baptist Convention, and William A. Fountain, the senior bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among other highly visible leaders of the Church in that year were Adam Clayton Powell Jr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church and congressman from Harlem, and major spiritual leaders like college presidents Benjamin E. Mays and Mordecai Johnson, and theologian Howard Thurman. There were, of course, strong local pastors like Martin Luther King Sr. of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church. One of the major features of the church scene in these days was the national presence and power of charismatic leaders like Father Divine and Daddy Grace.

This, of course, was in the heyday of Jim Crow, and it was widely said then that 11 o'clock Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in America and it still is today according to some church leaders. Since that time, largely because of the work of Black Church leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and other members of the Black clergy, the Black Church and the White Church have changed significantly. The Baptist Church, which was the leading Black denomination in 1945 in terms of membership, is still the largest denomination in Black America. But the relatively small Pentecostal denominations of yester-year have grown phenomenally, and current survey figures indicate that the Church of God in Christ is now the second largest Black denomination in the nation. Most denominations, White and Black, have lost ground in overall membership, but the Black Pentecostal groups, according to current figures, are the fastest-growing Christian religious groups in Black and White America.

There have been other changes as well, including the sharp increase in the number of Black Muslims, Black Baha'is and other non-Christians. At the same time, again largely due to the Black Church-led Freedom Movement, there has been a dramatic increase in the power and influence of Blacks in what one Black churchman calls the "outposts" of the historically Black Church, predominantly Black groups and denominations in historically White churches.

In 1945, there were no Black bishops or major officials in the White Church. Today, there are major officials in almost all White religious organizations. In some cases, and in some cities, Black men and women are the major officials of these churches.

By almost all accounts, the Black Church has made major contributions to Black and White America since 1945. Racial equality has always been a precept upheld and espoused in the Black Church and has since chimed through the halls of White congregations as well. It is generally agreed that the Freedom Movement, led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr., increased the amount of political and spiritual freedoms in Black America.

The distinct musical style of Blacks, with its varied meters and African-inspired beats, has lifted the soul and spirit of Christian and Gospel music alike. And, the lively worship style that characterizes the traditional Black Church has become commonplace in the larger church community.

The changing years have also brought about new challenges. The modern-day Black Church is confronted with a membership that includes fewer men and an increasing number of women who are demanding greater participation in the life of the church, according to religious observers, such as Dr. Clarence G. Newsome, dean of the Howard University School of Divinity, Dr. James H. Costen, president of the Interdenominational Theological Center, and Duke University professor and author C. Eric Lincoln. Over the past 50 years, the numbers of Black men in congregational life have sharply decreased. The abrupt decline, religious leaders say, is partly attributed to incarceration, gangs and the lure of non-Christian groups.

While the church works to improve its male population, all observers agree, that it will also have to increase its efforts to include women at every level of church leadership.

"The Church is just beginning to challenge sexism as a social ill," says the Rev. Vashti McKenzie, pastor of Baltimore's Payne Memorial AME Church. "In the next 50 years, I hope that we'll go beyond equal access in ministry to leadership positions and break beyond the glass ceiling in the church as we have in business."

Moreover, the Black Church of the future will be further challenged to establish itself as an even stronger economic, social and political epicenter in the community, some religious leaders say. "The African-American Church needs to be in a position to leverage the decision-making process at every level," Howard University's Newsome explains, "so that the dollars that would be spent to incarcerate mostly Black males could be spent in ways to develop people."

As one era gives way to another, the Church will have to move from its role of spiritual caretaker to a more practical role of community nurturer, providing services as varied as temporary housing, employment programs and rehabilitative services. While some churches do, so few don’t because of economic restraints.

Indeed, with prayer, grace and purposed action, the Black Church, observers say, will arrive, safely into the 21st century. "The Black Church must demonstrate tough love in its ministries to itself and others, insisting on high standards, uncompromised values, hard work, tenacity and Christ-like concern," says ITC's Dr. Costen. "For Black religion is a religion of the head and of the heart, of healing and doing and, most especially," he adds, "of being."

That is why the current fate of the Black Church in Black America is one that concerns me because looking at where I stay, in a city that is 85% predominately black and with a church nearly on every corner in the city of Detroit, I can’t understand why the city has crumbled so badly. Thus it made me wonder what is truly the future role of the Black Church in black communities today when so many residents of the communities where black churches reside are unemployed or are living below the poverty.

It makes me wonder what exactly Black Churches are doing to combat the issues plaguing black communities such as high unemployment, high HIV/AIDS rates, and high teenage pregnancy rates as well as high abortion rates. It makes me wonder what is the role of Black Church today beyond just the preaching the gospel and musical styles. What are Black Church leaders doing to appeal to the hearts and souls of those in the black community who have lost faith not only spiritually but in life period?

While it is not just up to the Black Church to restore black communities, it goes to say something when if you look around black communities like Detroit and see a church or perhaps two in a .1 mile radius of each other but poverty and plight being high in the communities where the churches reside. This is just one of many issues that one will notice. Therefore the fate of the Black Church in Black America needs to be questioned and the timing is appropriate now more than ever.

I can recall reading an article entitled “The Current and Future Black Church.” Below are excerpts of the article:

The Spousal Unit and I are dealing with our issues of traditions. I like angelic choirs and organ fugues, she likes rocking gospel and tambourines. We both love God but we cannot find a house with the right flavor. We have both experienced the humiliation and embarrassment of watching each other be uncomfortable and alienated in the other's house of worship. I think that our petty differences serve to illustrate something of the alienation of many people from Church and it brings me close to some fundamental questions that I have decided to deal with at length during this period of my life. It is not the cause, but a serious reason for me to undertake matters of theology.

It was therefore providential that at the last minute, the topic of debate for my episode of 'Black Men Revealed' was switched to 'Why Black Men Don't Church'. While I would much rather have talked about politics or culture I had to deal with how I thought other black men deal with such matters of the spirit in relation to the Black Church.

I'm Episcopalian. There aren't many black Episcopalians, but the Anglican Church is ascendant in Africa, and the number two man in the Episcopal Church (which we often refer to as the Body of Christ), the Archbishop of York, is too African. As with every other branch of Christianity, what Africans bring to worship ultimately changes the character of church. Churches change. Christ remains the same. How do we reconcile the two?

When we talked about this, my wife and I, she said something that I think very well exemplifies the problems of the Black Church. At least, I can get my head around it. I'd like to share that insight with you and kick off a bunch of discussion. But first let me give you one of my overriding concerns.

The biggest concern I have with Christian Churches are their flexibility. I can't explain exactly how it makes me feel (other than awful) to read Bible verses today in something other than the King James Version. So I don't. I grew up getting gold stars first in Bible School, by memorizing the denotation and the connotation of Bible verses. I did so in the Foursquare Church, which was a Pentecostal Evangelical sect of Christianity. Everything I knew about God, and I was a precocious little twerp, meant people getting the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues, dancing all over, faith healing and the whole kinetic experience. My Bible was a black leather King James red letter edition with a zipper that had a cross on it. That was, unquestionably, The Word of GOD! The same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

From reading this article, I took from it that the author had many questions regarding not just the leadership of the Black Church but the teaching in Black Churches. The author had an issue with many religions such as Catholics. The author attended a catholic school and begin to ask questions such as who was this Virgin Mary, and how come we didn't talk to Jesus anymore? What are these Stations of the Cross and what is Confession all about? The author asked every question and got every answer and begin to realize there was more to God than he had ever known. Because if God could accept these Catholics into his Heavenly Kingdom, there are more ways to God than the author could ever believe possible. And the author watched Catholics writhe and pain at the passage of Vatican II, and lament the fact that Mass was said in English instead of Latin. And the author freaked out when they said the Lord's Prayer with different words. Now all of this was happening to the author during the same time that President Nixon was being kicked out of office and air raid drills rang out every first Friday at 10am. The world was upside down, and they even changed the Bible.

So how could all of God's people be so misled when deep down in their hearts they wanted to be faithful? How could an entire church be wrong? How could a minister, oops I mean priest be wrong? The Catholics had an answer that satisfied the author in the definition of a Sacrament. A Sacrament is an outward expression of an inward commitment. Suddenly the author understood that it was the inward commitment to God that mattered most. Churches could change, Bibles could change, prayers could change, but one's love for God and God's love could never change. Church then, is all about getting one to that moment. To quiet one’s mind and open up one’s heart to be at one with the Holy Trinity.

Now I know that this is what brings other people to tears as it does to me when I write it. But that beauty and peacefulness of the Spirit is here with me now as I do. It's difficult for me to understand why everybody wouldn't want that same blessing. But I know that people don't. I acknowledge that there are many different traditions that get different people to that holy moment, those moments of numinous oneness with God. And so when we are brought to speak about black people, we must know that amongst all of us those differences are real. Which brings me back to the author and his Spousal Unit.

The author’s Spousal Unit says, “That the problem facing the Black Church is what to do with young people. She knows as we all know that there are far too many black folks who need God in a desperate way, but are not getting churched. And she says that the Church is struggling with that mightily. When I was a child, she said, it was inconceivable that some kid with baggy pants, sneakers, football jersey, gold chain and a baseball hat could come into Church. You don't come in here looking like that. And therein lays the paradox because this is the child who needs church most.”

Therefore it is clear that in today’s society the youth of today have no spiritual guidance and they don't have decent community and they don't have people they can trust when America doesn't have their back. These are the people that we are losing and the Black Church must help find. And that is the core dilemma faced by Black Churches. Do they take these people in as they are? Do they change the music to attract them? Do they change the way Church is done to accommodate the sinner? How does the black minister of today appeal to the black youth of today? What difference does it make? Those are some of the questions that the Black Church faces today in terms of relating to sinners particularly youth who have no spiritual guidance.

Then as the author sates, there are other problems plaguing Black Churches. The author says: “I'm conservative. I think the Catholic Church is more conservative than the Episcopal Church and I have half a mind to switch to it. I do so because I want my church to be unchanging as God. I want to feel conformed with the infinite in the company of men and women who feel the same. For me that means ritual. I can meditate and pray and reach God when I feel like it. I don't need church for that. I need church for those other things - to reach that holy moment in communion with others. So for me the very idea of changing any church for the sake of black youth or Serbian grandmothers or Chinese farmers or Malaysian miners is crazy foolish in the extreme. Church isn't supposed to change for you, church is supposed to change you. And yet I acknowledge and recognize that every church is different. God gets through.”

So when it comes to the Black Church, the dilemma then is who should initiate the change. Given that change is inevitable and that the church will reflect the desires of the people to express themselves as they do, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Who picks which version of the Bible? Who says whom is certified to be a minister? All these things are changing dynamically in African America. People in Los Angeles are going to church where the Lakers used to play basketball. In my world, that's unthinkable. But it's real. By the thousands it's real. Church is marketed. Congregations are target markets. Reaching out with the Word means reaching the masses, by radio, by television, by podcast, by email, by video game. Have it your way. Why not?

The Conservative in me says that something is amiss. There is something about the harvesting of souls that's not quite right. The fishers of men are using huge nets and dumping all of the souls on the decks to be processed. However the Liberal in me says that there is something to be said about mega churches and the work they can do to impact our societies but still for so few communities, it seems as if black communities are going down the tubes as the Black Church particularly mega churches prosper. Now I am not saying that mega churches are bad but what I am saying is that what more can the mega church do to help not only its members but the communities in which they reside to improve the conditions of those who are not members of the church but are members of the community for which the church resides.

So my indictment goes to the minister who does not have a sect. I see nothing wrong with the storefront church. Every ministry starts somewhere. But I have a hard time understanding where the Methodists disagree with the Mormons or the Baptists with the Anabaptist and the Presbyterians with the Seventh Day Adventists. I have a hard time understanding how these Protestant traditions are losing ground to today's Faith Domes. I have a hard time understanding how the institution of the black church is changing and why and which direction it is headed.

I understand that the Black Church has been overloaded with responsibilities it alone shouldered in the days before civil rights. I understand that a great deal of black tradition has been lost to integration, that our freedom and empowerment to employ mainstream institutions has weakened and specialized the Black Church to be little more than a church. Where it once might have been a school and a political organization and a graveyard, blacks can now use the public facilities.

But is the Black Church on the right track? Are the traditions growing stronger or is it all a New Jack thing? What's the difference? Is that old time religion good enough for anyone? On the whole are blacks closer to God because of the Black Church or is black America losing spiritual ground? I think there is a looming crisis. What is the institutional future? Is it bright? If not, what is to be done?

Those are the questions that I myself even struggle to answer because while there are many black pastors, ministers or bishops who are fiery and give spiritual rhetoric in a thunderous way that makes the crowd or congregation constantly say “Amen!” It is still a question that lingers as to how many black church leaders truly get it and are working to improve the conditions of society. It is something to be said about black church leaders who are doing God’s work but are living lavish lifestyles while many in their congregation are losing their homes, are on welfare or are living paycheck to paycheck which means they are one paycheck away from being in poverty while some are already there.

These are the issues that make me wonder just how much the Black Church is really doing to impact the black communities and Black America. While the Black Church has played a pivotal role in Black America, it is still something to be said for those Black Church leaders who in 2004 told many Blacks not to vote in the Presidential Election or told their congregation that voting wouldn’t change their conditions so why waste your time but instead give to God that is where real change happens.

So is the new Black Church role to tell its members not to vote in elections when the Black Church helped pave the way for the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement and the voting rights act which protects all Americans but especially people of color right to vote. What does all of this mean to Black America when the Black Church tells it members not to exercise their right to vote? With so many issues plaguing Black America, it will take more than just prayer to deal with the problems facing us as a people. In fact prayer without action is powerless.

"Faith without work is dead!" "Prayer without action can grow into sterile pietism. Action without prayer may deteriorate into questionable activism." "If prayer leads us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will always blossom into concrete acts of service. And if concrete acts of service do, indeed, lead us into a deeper solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed, these acts will always thrive with prayer." "In prayer we meet Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet people, and in them the suffering Christ." Therefore "Prayer is not an escape from direct involvement with the many needs and pains of our world." We must not just pray but we must act as well when times call for actions because not all things will be solved through action and not all things will be solved with just prayer alone. This the balance the Black Church provided us as a society and today it seems as if both are losing its way more and more in today’s time.

The fate of the Black Church in Black America is in limbo but that is not reason for despair because the Black Church can reclaim its old glory with outreach that extends to the communities for which the reside. Going door to door as if it was a political campaign not just spreading the gospel but spreading the news to the members of the community as to what the church offers in order to entice some to get involved in the church or least encourage their youth to get involved. The fate of the Black Church in Black America today has hope for the future but it begins with a proactive revolutionary approach that showcases the Black Church to Black America in a way that hasn’t been done. It is not enough of the Black Church regardless if it is mega, big or small to just preach the gospel and advertise on the radio, television or internet to attract members but it has to be more hands on with the black community particularly those residents where there churches reside. It is not enough for the Black Church to just attract members but it is time for the Black Church to uplift its members as well as non-members to believe again in the power of God through the power of prayers and action.

The Black Church role in Black America must change but most of all it must change to improve the economic, social and spiritual conditions of the black community today.