Black church
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The term Black church or African American church refers to a number of predominantly Black Christian churches that minister to Black communities in the United States. While there are some predominantly Black denominations, the oldest of which is the AME Church, many Black churches are members 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 to their religious role, African American churches traditionally have provided political leadership and served social welfare functions, such as providing for the indigent and establishing schools, orphanages and other social service institutions.[2]
History
To make them easier to control, American slave owners deliberately and systematically stripped African slaves of their culture and social heritage, including religion. Slave owners sometimes went as far as to pass laws prohibiting African religious practices. Despite these efforts, slaves managed to retain some elements of their culture. In the context of religion, these survivals include call and response interactions, shouting, and dance.[2]
Slavery
Slaves learned Christianity in one of two ways. Either by attending services with Whites, usually in a separate section of the church, or in services with other slaves usually led by a White preacher or attended by White person who supervised the service. Either way, religion became as a tool of social control by providing a moral justification for slavery, such as the Curse of Ham, and encouraging slaves to be loyal and hardworking by promising rewards after death. Slave revolts in the early 1800s, often inspired by the Bible or lead by Black preachers, prompted several laws barring Black churches and Black preachers. Because of this, some slaves organized into underground churches to gain more freedom in worship. The only truly independent Black churches were those established by free Blacks.[2] Free Blacks organized these churches as a direct response to racial discrimination.[3] Along with White churches opposed to slavery, these free Black churches provided aid and comfort to escaping slaves.[4]
Still, the underground churches provided an opportunity for slaves to gain some hope for a better future. At these hidden meetings, the slaves were free to mix evangelical Christianity with African rhythms and beliefs. These rhythms combined with traditional hymns became spirituals. These songs served as expressions of emotion as well as secret signals that went unnoticed by slave owners. Black preachers also incorporated rhythmic elements into chanted sermons. The underground church was a psychological refuge from the perceived mockery of Christianity taught in White churches. It also served the very purpose the slave owners feared, rebellion. In 1831, Nat Turner, a slave and a Baptist preacher, killed a number of white men, women, and children in an armed rebellion in Virginia.[5]
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 Church (CME) was founded. The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., now the largest Black religious organization in the United States, was founded in 1894.[5] 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. Because of this, the Black community developed into a community both a part of and independent of American society. The Black church was the focal point of this community. Black preachers provided leadership to the community. They encouraged education, economic growth, and were often the primary link between the Black and White communities. The first Black schools were established and/or maintained by the Black church. The church encouraged members of the community to contribute financially to these schools and to other Black social support groups.[2]
Since the male hierarchy denied them opportunities for ordination, middle-class women in the Black church organized missionary societies that served to address several social issues. These groups provided job training and reading education. They also worked for better living conditions, raised money for African missions, wrote religious periodicals, and promoted Victorian ideals of womanhood, respectability, and racial uplift.[5]
Civil Rights Movement
Black churches held a leadership role in the American Civil Rights Movement. Their history as a focal point for the Black community and as a link between the Black and White worlds made them ideal for this purpose. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was but one of many notable Black ministers involved in the movement. Ralph David Abernathy, Bernard Lee, Fred Shuttlesworth, and C.T. Vivian are amongst the many notable minister-activists.[6]
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. For example, a study found that Black Christians were more likely to have heard about health care reform from their pastors than White Christians.[7] Black churches are typically very conservative on moral issues such as homosexuality.[8]
Historically Black Denominations
Throughout the history of America, racial segregation and religious preferences have encouraged the development of not only Black churches within established predominantly White denominations but separate historically Black denominations.
African Methodist Episcopal Church
The first of these churches was the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Richard Allen was a former slave and 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 African Methodist Episcopal Church after St. George's white members, increasingly uncomfortable with the large number of Blacks the charismatic Allen had attracted to the church, began relegating Black worshipers to the church balcony. Over time, growing numbers of African-American congregations withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1816, representatives of these congregations convened to establish the A.M.E. Church, consecrating Allen as their bishop.[3]
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion or AME Zion Church, like the AME Church is an offshoot of the Methodist Episcopal Church that evolved separately under similar circumstances. 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. This group was still a part of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was lead by White preachers. The African Methodist Episcopal Church built Zion chapel in 1800 and became incorporated, subordinate to the White Methodist Episcopal Church in 1801. In 1820, the AME Zion Church began the process of separating themselves further from the Methodist Episcopal Church. They first sought to install Black preachers and elders creating a debate over whether Blacks could be members. This debate ended with the ordination of James Varick as the first bishop of the AME Zion church in 1822.[9]
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.[10] The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc is the largest religious organization amongst African Americans.[11]
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.[12] 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.[13]
Other Denominations
- Pentecostal Assemblies of the World
- National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.
- Progressive National Baptist Convention
- National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
- Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
- African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection
- Apostolic Faith Mission
- Spiritual Israel Church and Its Army
See also
References
- ^ Sutton, Charyn D. (1992). Pass It On: Outreach to Minority Communities, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|year=(help) - ^ a b c d e Abdul Alkalimat and Associates. Religion and the Black Church. Introduction to Afro-American Studies (6th ed.). Chicago: Twenty-first Century Books and Publications.
- ^ a b "Africans in America: The Black Church". Retrieved 2007-05-21.
- ^ Rimsa, Kelly. "The Underground Railroad in Indiana". Retrieved 2007-05-21.
- ^ a b c Maffly-Kipp, Laurie F. (May 2001). "The Church in the Southern Black Community". Retrieved 2007-05-21.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "We Shall Overcome: The Players". Retrieved 2007-05-29.
- ^ "The Diminishing Divide ... American Churches, American Politics". June 25, 1996. Retrieved 2007-05-16.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Fears, Darryl (2004-11-02). "Gay Blacks Feeling Strained Church Ties". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-05-16.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Moore, John Jamison, D.D (1884). History of the A.M.E. Zion Church in America. Founded 1796, In the City of New York. York, Pa: Teachers' Journal Office.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|year=(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "History of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc". Retrieved 2007-05-29.
- ^ "African American Religion, Pt. II: From the Civil War to the Great Migration, 1865-1920". Retrieved 2007-05-29.
- ^ "The Story of Our Church". Retrieved 2007-05-22.
- ^ "Chronology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr". Retrieved 2007-05-22.