Black church

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The term black church or African American church refers to predominantly African American Christian churches that minister to black communities in the United States. While some groups of black churches, such as African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Churches, belong to predominantly black denominations, many black churches are part of predominantly white denominations.^[1] Historically, separate churches have enabled blacks to worship in their own culturally distinct ways and assume positions of leadership denied to them in mainstream America. In addition, African American churches have served social welfare functions, such as providing for the indigent and establishing schools and orphanages.^[2]

[edit] History

To make them easier to control, American slave owners systematically stripped African slaves of their cultural heritage, including religion, sometimes passing laws prohibiting African religious practices. Despite these efforts, slaves managed to retain elements of their culture. In the context of religion, these elements included call and response interactions, shouting, and dance.^[2]

[edit] Slavery

See also: History of slavery in the United States

Slaves often learned about Christianity by attending services led by a white preacher or supervised by a white person. In such settings, whites used Bible stories such as the Curse of Ham to justify slavery. They promoted the idea that loyal and hard-working slaves would be rewarded in the after-life.

Slave revolts in the early 1800s, often inspired by other passages in the Bible or by black preachers, led to laws barring black churches and black preachers. Slaves organized underground churches and hidden religious meetings, where slaves were free to mix evangelical Christianity with African beliefs and African rhythms and turn traditional hymns into spirituals. The underground churches provided psychological refuge from the white world, and the spirituals gave the church members a secret way to communicate and, in some cases, to plan rebellion. In 1831, Nat Turner, a slave and a Baptist preacher, killed about 50 white men, women, and children in an armed rebellion in Virginia.^[3]

Where it was possible, free blacks organized independent black churches^[2] in response to racial discrimination.^[4] Along with white churches opposed to slavery, they provided aid and comfort to escaping slaves.^[5]

[edit] Reconstruction

See also: Reconstruction

After emancipation, Northern churches founded by free blacks, as well as predominantly white denominations, sent missions to the South to minister to newly freed slaves. The AME and AME Zion churches gained hundreds of thousands of members. In 1870, the Southern based Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church was founded. The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., now the largest black religious organization in the United States, was founded in 1894.^[3] These churches blended elements from the underground churches with elements from freely established black churches.^[2] Despite early efforts to integrate freed slaves into American society, racial segregation quickly became the norm in many states. The black communities, with the black churches as focal points, developed along lines partly independent of white communities. Black preachers provided leadership, encouraged education and economic growth, and were often the primary link between the black and white communities. The black church established and/or maintained the first black schools and encouraged community members to fund these schools and other public services.^[2]

Since the male hierarchy denied them opportunities for ordination, middle-class women in the black church organized missionary societies to address social issues. These societies provided job training and reading education, worked for better living conditions, raised money for African missions, wrote religious periodicals, and promoted Victorian ideals of womanhood, respectability, and racial uplift.^[3]

[edit] Civil Rights Movement

See also: American Civil Rights Movement

Black churches held a leadership role in the American Civil Rights Movement. Their history as a centers of strength for the black community made them natural leaders in this moral struggle. In addition they had often served as links between the black and white worlds. Notable minister-activists included Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, Bernard Lee, Fred Shuttlesworth, and C.T. Vivian.^[6]

[edit] Politics and social issues

The black church continues to be a source of support for members of the African American community. When compared to American churches as a whole, black churches tend to focus more on social issues such as poverty, gang violence, drug use, and racism. A study found that black Christians were more likely to have heard about health care reform from their pastors than were white Christians.^[7] Black churches are typically very conservative on sexuality issues, such as homosexuality.^[8]

[edit] As neighborhood institutions

Although black neighborhoods may suffer from civic disinvestment^[9], with lower quality schools, less effective policing^[10] and fire protection. There are institutions that help to improve the physical and social capital of black neighborhoods. In black neighborhoods the churches may be important sources of social cohesion.^[11]For some African Americans the kind spirituality learned through these churches works as a protective factor against the corrosive forces of racism.^[12] Churches my also do work to improve the physical infrastructure of the neighborhood. Churches in Harlem have undertaken real estate ventures and renovated burnt out and abandon brownstones to create new housing for residents.^[13] Churches have fought for the right to operate their own schools in place of the often inadequate public schools found in many black neighborhoods.^[14]

[edit] Traditions

Like many Christians, African American Christians sometimes participate in or attend a Christmas play. Black Nativity by Langston Hughes, is a re-telling of the classic Nativity story with gospel music. Productions can be found at black theaters and churches all over the country.^[15][16] The Three Wise Men are typically played by prominent members of the black community in the neighboring area.

[edit] Historically black denominations

Throughout U.S. history, religious preferences and racial segregation have fostered development of separate black church denominations, as well as black churches within white denominations.

[edit] African Methodist Episcopal Church

Main article: African Methodist Episcopal Church

The first of these churches was the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Richard Allen, a former slave, was an influential deacon and elder at the integrated and affluent St. George's Methodist Church in Philadelphia. In 1787, Allen founded the all-black Mother Bethel AME Church after white members of St. George's started to treat his people as second-class citizens. The charismatic Allen had attracted numerous new black members to St. George's and white members became so uncomfortable they relegated black worshippers to the balcony.

Over time, growing numbers of African-American congregations withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church. In 1816, representatives of these congregations convened to establish the AME Church and consecrated Allen as their bishop.^[4]

[edit] African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

Main article: African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion or AME Zion Church, like the AME Church, is an offshoot of the ME Church. Black members of the John Street Methodist Church of New York City left to form their own church after several acts of overt discrimination. In 1796, black Methodists asked the permission of the bishop of the ME Church to meet independently, though still to be part of the ME Church and still be led by white preachers. This AME Church group built Zion chapel in 1800 and became incorporated, subordinate to the ME Church, in 1801. In 1820, AME Zion Church members began further separation from the ME Church. By seeking to install black preachers and elders, they created a debate over whether blacks could be ministers. This debate ended in 1822 with the ordination of Abraham Thompson, Leven Smith, and James Varick, the first superintendent (bishop) of the AME Zion church.^[17]

[edit] National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

Main article: National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

The National Baptist Convention was first organized in 1880 as the Foreign Mission Baptist Convention in Montgomery, Alabama. Its founders, including Elias Camp Morris, stressed the preaching of the gospel as an answer to the shortcomings of a segregated church. In 1895, Morris moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and founded the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., as a merger of the Foreign Mission Convention, the American National Baptist Convention, and the Baptist National Education Convention.^[18] The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., is the largest African American religious organization.^[19]

[edit] Church of God in Christ

Main article: Church of God in Christ

In 1907, Charles Harrison Mason formed the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) after his Baptist church expelled him. Mason was a member of the Holiness Movement of the late 19th century. In 1906, he attended the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. Upon his return to Tennessee, he began teaching the Pentecostal Holiness message. However, Charles Price Jones and J. A. Jeter of the Holiness movement disagreed with Mason's teachings on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Jones changed the name of his COGIC church to Church of Christ, Holiness (USA) in 1915.

At a conference in Memphis, Tennessee, Mason reorganized the Church of God in Christ as a Holiness Pentecostal body.^[20] The headquarters of COGIC is Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. It is the site of Martin Luther King's final sermon, "I've been to the Mountain Top," delivered the day before he was assassinated.^[21]

[edit] Other denominations

• African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection
• Apostolic Faith Mission
• Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
• National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
• Pentecostal Assemblies of the World
• Progressive National Baptist Convention
• Spiritual Israel Church and Its Army
• United House of Prayer for All People

[edit] See also

• African American culture
• African American
• Black Madonna, certain European depictions of a dark-skinned Virgin Mary

[edit] References