SubscribeIs the black church dead?
“The Black Church is Dead” declared an article that’s making its way around the internet and that has become a topic of discussion among clergy and laity alike. The article posits the esteemed black church that was once “central to black life and a repository for the social and moral conscience of the nation has all but disappeared.”
The institutional black church, which historically stood as a place of power and refuge in our communties, may be losing relevance among many African Americans for several reasons, said author, Eddie Glaude Jr., currently the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and chair of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University.
The quick version of the reasons are: the black church remains very conservative in its theology; more African Americans are attending integrated and multi-racial churches; a number of churches cling more to past deeds and historical significance than to tackling present problems. To that last point, Glaude says such a church loses it power.
“Memory becomes its currency. Its soul withers from neglect. The result is all too often church services and liturgies that entertain, but lack a spirit that transforms, and preachers who deign for followers instead of fellow travelers in God.”
I can relate to much of what Glaude says in his article, though I am not ready to throw out the baby with the bath water so to speak. In my volunteer work with a Washington area Baptist group that represents more than 100 churches, I see many black churches that are doing great work in their communities and remain vibrant forces of social and religious change. Some are addressing the urgent needs of people in their communities and are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, attending the sick and showing compassion to the incarcerated. They are reaching out to those suffering in their communities and even in mission fields abroad. They are giving voice to the voiceless.
They are indeed, as Glaude put it, “witnesses to the ongoing revelation of God’s love in the here and now.”
But it couldn’t hurt to stop and assess where the venerable black church stands today in a society that continues to change so rapidly and where there are so many more church choices now available to our own diverse community. As Glaude writes, “The death of black church as we have known it occasions an opportunity to breathe new life into what means to be black and Christian.”
Read the article and let me know what you think? Do you attend a traditionally black church? How is it involved in addressing the concerns and needs of its community?
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