The past decade has afforded me an opportunity rarely found in recent American church culture. For a complex of reasons I have become a white preacher in black churches. I have spoken before more than 200 African American congregations, conferences, and conventions in more than twenty states each year. From coast to coast and border to border, in urban centers and small towns, I have preached in America's black churches. These include not only black Baptist congregations but African Methodist Episcopal, Church of God in Christ, and other historically black denominations.
From that experience, I am at a loss for an explanation of Dr. Glaude's statement that the black church is dead. If it is, I do not know who signed the death certificate or notified the next of kin. In every way I can measure vitality, the black church is energetic, living, and flourishing.
As a professor of preaching, I know well that preaching itself thrives in the black church as in no other culture I have experienced. The moment of preaching in the black church is an electric moment. The people anticipate that God will speak through the sermon with a word for them, right in their current existence and in that very venue. The Bible in black preaching is not an ancient story but a personal reality of their human existence now. For instance, every Sunday Rev. Dr. Ralph D. West stands in front of more than 10,000 persons in five services in Houston at The Church Without Walls. He started the church in his home 22 years ago. Through Dr. West's consistent, honest preaching, God has filled the church. In far too many white churches, the sermon is a pill to be swallowed; in the black church, preaching is a meal to relish.
The vitality of worship in the black church has not waned. Warmth, freedom, expressiveness, liberty of voice and movement, spontaneity and response all stamp black worship. It is in every sense alive. The community gathers every week in a celebration of the grace of God that carried them through the previous week and will see them through the week to come. The sense of hope is tangible in black churches.
Social justice concerns still mark the life of every black church I visit. It is a short distance from the church's fellowship hall to city hall or state house. My friend of the decades, Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith Sr., has only to suggest that he has a concern in Oakland, California, and a thousand will people will march with him to the seats of power. When Dr Smith recently retired, the Republican governor of the state, Arnold Schwarzenegger, came to his retirement banquet, sat through the entire dinner, and lauded Dr. Smith as one of California's greatest sources for good and justice.
Community service reigns in the black church with insistent vitality. Care for the latch-key kids, the elderly, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, and the forgotten is a daily practice for every black church I know. Black churches do not hire somebody else to do it. The lay folks do it, freely and with love.
A high regard for education marks the vital black church. In state after state I have watched pastors call students to the platform at the end of a Sunday morning service and recognize those who have made the A and B honor roll, in elementary school as well as in high school and college. The entire congregation celebrates every report card, every academic admission, and graduation and every credentialing. The intentional affirmation of academic achievement in the black church is a cornerstone of the community's educational advancement.
Empowerment happens in the black church. My friend Rev. Joe Carter serves the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. That city has as many challenges as any. He takes the poorest from the streets, feeds them lunch, dries them out, sobers them up, counsels them vocationally, teaches them how to write a résumé, and reclaims them for society. New Hope is not alone among black congregations offering such earthy empowerment. Computer labs and church credit unions, job fairs and school fairs, job training and financial workshops for credit repair and budget planning -- these are all happening in the black churches I visit.
Where is the obituary? I do not see it. I do not know any organization in America today that has the vitality of the black church. Lodges are dying, civic clubs are filled with octogenarians, volunteer organizations are languishing, and even the academy has to prove the worth of a degree. The government is divided, the schoolroom has become a war zone, mainline denominations are staggering, and evangelical megachurch juggernauts are showing signs of lagging. Above all of this entropy stands one institution that is more vital than ever: the praising, preaching, and empowering black church.
Eddie Glaude, Jr., Ph.D.: The Black Church Is Dead
As we repeatedly pound our chests proclaiming anedoctal accounts of good will alive within the black church, NCES confirms only 65% of black students continue to leave HS with a diploma in a world where a college education is no longer an option. DHHS claims (minorityhealth.hhs.gov) 80% of African-American women (highest US group) are overweight or obese. This and childhood obesity unless immediately addressed surely is impacting the health and structure of our communities. Where is that transforming spirit rooted in the black church changing our Community, or is this as Dr. Glaude suggests memories resulting from some sort of cognitive dissonance? Most importantly and central to Dr. Glaudes essay, where is your evidence that America's moral compass is still connected to the prophetic witness intrinsic to the black church or have we so soon forgotten how we responded to the prophetic voice of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
First, would be the focus of worship. In many churches, the focus is no longer on praise directed up to God, but entertainment directed out to the congregation. The focus is on quantity rather than quality. They want full pews instead of the faithful few. Singing and dancing are more important than preaching and praying.
Second, would be the scope of service to the community. The black church was first and foremost the center of social life in the community. It was generally a place of safety (Birmingham put a damper on that). The church has not kept up with a changed society. Oh, there are the mega churches which are just personality cults. There's not much happening to empower dying communities, nurture children, tend to the needs of elderly and poor, etc.
Third, would be the message of today's church. The focus of the message of today's church is largely prosperity and the Big Two Sins: homosexuality and abortion. The church has lost much of its impact because it has lost its way theologically, has become a platform for charlatans, and is an object of ridicule for many well-publicized falls from grace.
Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only.
And isn't this an unfortunate thing?
I love church. But it is more stressful to attend and listen to unenlightened, self-appointed authorities than to stay home and read my Bible. And in the black church, that's going to include at least one song with about 10 repeats of a feel-good refrain to loud accompaniment followed by a preaching performance that is short on substance. In white church, it may be the stress of a lukewarm reception, hearing the occasional ambiguous 'racial' comment from a member or from the pulpit or worse of all -- the political sermon!
I was forced to go to "The Black Church" as a teenager. It was a slavish den of superstition, victimology, and anti-intellectualism --- not to mention the EXTREMELY loud music. I'd rather go bang my head against a wall than ever return.
The only real difference is the overt racial self segregation at "The Black Church". Besides, black churches tend to be rather fundamentalist, as compared to --- say --- Lutherans. I'm sure there's research out there that can confirm this. But African American churchgoers tend to believe more in heaven, hell, the rapture, and other Christian superstitions than Americans at large.
I worship in the Lutheran tradition... none of those things apply in my experience.
If your a religious person you should need a special place to be one with your religion.