My plans to edit this Immortal Technique/Diabolic footage, and get in front of the camera for a few other things, are being delayed by this onslaught of sunshine. And as I indulge in a rare bit of fresh air I’m reading up on this debate over whether the Black church is dead (a break from the usual debate in my circles over whether Hip-Hop is dead).
I’ve been Agnostic/Atheist for as long I’ve been old enough to form an opinion on it, but grew up regularly attending a couple of Harlem churches with my family (I was at Abyssinian when Rev. Butts steamrolled the rap CDs, perhaps not the church’s most forward thinking moment)…and had great experiences being welcomed into churches during my time with the StoryCorps Griot Initiative, especially in Atlanta with Dr. Gerald Durley of Providence Missionary Baptist Church.
So I have tremendous respect for the vital roles that both personal faith, and the church as an institution, have played in countless people’s lives. Plus this topic gives me an excuse to post some of my favorite Gospel clips from Youtube. As a music lover I’ll just never be able to muster up Hitchens-esque hate against an institution that produces so much amazing funk and soul.
Any thoughts on the role of the Black church in 2010? Is its “demise” in some ways comparable to the “downfall’ of hip-hop? For those who I’m sure know the music better than I ever will, other youtube gems I should’ve added? Let me know in the comments.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I think the black church isn’t really a dead thing. The black church needs to be more open to what’s happening in the world, instead of trying to retro the world to fit it. Churches once had a power in the black community, now that power is abused. That is the one element that needs to be changed above all us.
I was just in church on Sunday for the first time in years. Brenda Matthews was a guest poet, one of her pieces was “Somebody better Say Something” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beNiuYANTmE talked about the need for folks to step up in our greater communities. The church raucously clapped in agreement. If the black church can breathe new life andre establish itself as the beacon for the community like it did post slavery, than it’ll live on. If not, it’ll just turn into another social club…and that is just my two cents…
My religious tastes have run the gamut but I was raised in a COGIC church. The traditions and rules of the black church do a lot to alienate young people. I don’t think most black churches do enought to make the message relevant to young people and in a sense the same is happening with rap. In the 80’s and 90’s you saw the music move with the times…from feel good songs to concious songs…rap has been stagnant for so long with the same styles and meassages…people want more and they want change…in that sense i think both demises are comparable.
here’s some Mahalia for you…greatest gospel singer that ever lived: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l49N8U3d0Bw&feature=fvw
Jay,
Glad that you are bringing this up. A quick point: The black church (a fraught term here, I acknowledge, since the churches you mention are of the mainline Protestant variety. There are plenty of non-mainline black churches in the US, including Pentecostal and of course the non-denominational ones like TD Jakes’ in Texas)has a large barrier to growth and even to maintain its current “strength” (however defined). That is of course, that church leadership is entirely unrepresentative of its congregants. What I’m talking about is the entirely male-dominated leadership in some of the most well-known black churches in NYC, Abyssinian and Convent in particular. The discrepancy is absolutely staggering. By continuing to exclude members of the very group that has maintained and contributed most to the church’s financial and social existence, it will undoubtedly undergo the scenario that many white, mainline Christian churches across America are going through right now.
On a separate note, the decline(again, this term is up for debate) of the black church is somewhat consistent with the decline (in attendance at least) of its white, mainline Protestant counterparts. The issue in these churches is not only gender discrimination but also the issue of generational difference and age. The average age of many of these white churches are exceedingly high. It has no one left to give the church to! But this again, may not signal the end of religiosity but it may signal the end of religion.
So to bring it back around to the issue of the black church, can we tentatively say that the decline of the black church(an institutional entity after all) may not equate to the end of black religiosity (something far more complicated than an institution) or the distinctiveness of black Christianity?
The thing about dynamic thing being dead is that you can’t define the body of Christ or the body of a network of churches (in other words) when it’s alive. Black people are so diverse and worship in so many different ways that it’s complicated to even define “The Black Church” post the Civil Rights era. It’s like the Mos Def quote about people talking about the future of Hip Hop. The future of the church is where the people are going; and as long as blackness isn’t dead, the black church isn’t dead. It’s transforming, so there will be aspects of it that will go away, for sure.
As a music lover I’ll just never be able to muster up Hitchens-esque hate against an institution that produces so much amazing funk and soul.
Wasn’t slavery the institution that produced spirituals, the spring that nurtured gospel music? It’s a striking feature of both art and much of African-American culture that it’s able to conjure redemptive power from oppressive experiences, but I don’t think that miraculous outcomes sanctify the damnable circumstances.
For me, the Christian tradition of homophobia (which includes in the black church the hypocritical exploitation of gay men to produce much of the music you refer to) is quite enough to inspire a Hitchen-esque reaction. I guess this is a case where one can love the sin and hate the sinner.
The black Christian church might be dying or dead. But the Church of The Secret and The Law of Attraction is not. That black church is surging.
I wouldn’t compare it to the “death” of hip-hop so much as the struggles of the historically black colleges and universities. There are more options for young African Americans to explore their spirituality and discover their callings as mainstream churches become increasingly aware of the blessings of a diverse congregation. And frankly, if a “church-shopper” was dedicated to the entire spectrum of civil rights and social justice in the local community and beyond, the black church might come across as an institution that is fighting the tide where some mainline churches are pushing the envelope.
It’s a tough challenge for every church to adapt to modern society and the shrinking pool of folks who wouldn’t rather spend Sunday mornings doing something else. And it’s undoubtedly double-hard for a church that arguably should remember and remind people of its critical historical legacy even when the need for transformation is so clear.
But, yeah. I predict we’re coming into an era when there will be more nationally-known black leaders whose title is “Governor” than “Reverend”. On the other hand, amazing gospel music will never die as long as anyone has ears to hear.
I don’t know about the death of the black church, but despite being white, Irish and raised Catholic, i can identify with the sentiment. I consider myself a stubborn agnostic in that I believe in God because I can’t or won’t accept that when I die all that’s left of me is a decaying body, a few possessions or even just memories and a name. If that’s all there is at my passing, a glorified imprint, nothing but a shape in the mud saying ‘I was here… but now I’m not!’, well, to me that’s not an option.
But that aside, what I’m witnessing here in Ireland is people taking a hard line against Catholic priests in particular and any kind of cleric/holy man in general. And before anyone says it, I know about the clerical sex abuse and i abhor it like any moral person, but there’s something else at work here too. I think worldwide as a society, we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater where religion is concerned. We’re tearing down an institution, whether it’s Protestant, Catholic or otherwise, without any idea of what we’re going to build in it’s place. And if you do that, if you destroy what you see as just an ugly edifice without figuring out what you’re going to fill that vacuum with you end up with just a barren, rubble-strewn wasteland.
Faith has become a bad word, a new kind of prejudice (as if we need another!) and what’s worse, it’s becoming socially acceptable to scoff and deride people of faith.
Do I believe in totally Blind Faith myself? No, not really. But i DO believe that faith is part of being human, it’s integral to the species, regardless of nation or colour or gender. I have FAITH in my fellow man’s ability to do the right thing, even if I’m sometimes disappointed. I have FAITH in love, otherwise I’d have no place being a married man and I’d never have married the wondeful woman I did. And i have some faith in God, however tenuous and delicate a thing that is in this world right now.
Either way, I think it’s something we’ve always needed and always will. Even after, as Douglas Adams said, God has disappeared in a puff of logic.
Loving the music, by yhe way!
there never was a “black church” singular, but if we are talking about the church as community center than this has died with the loss of our communities, forget about love of neighbor we don’t even know our neighbors till their kids end up on the local news. the church was a kind of parallel govt for people locked out of govt but now that this is changing the institution has to find a new civic purpose or fight for it’s place in the market of ideas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPsxL55zY4Q&feature=player_embedded
Ummm.. did someone mention that “today,” alot of the black churches are led by use-to-be “old G’s” with prison/recovery/institutional thinking….hence another casualty of the crack revolution (sighs)..
BTW… the rap and R&b influence put into gospel music is just sad and feels and sounds like plastic.boring.
I think the Black church that I grew up in seem pretty antiquated now. The whole format of only men being in the pulpit, the sexist and homophobic messages that are subtle and not-so-subtle in the messages, etc.n just seem irrelevant and narrow-minded.I find that the mainstream(predominately White, nondenominational) churches seem to be more open and accepting of different views.
Been following your blog for a little while and can definitely relate to feeling as though the Black church has played an important role for the community — even as a non-theist/agnost. However, in my personal experiences with the Black church, I took more offense (even as a wee little girl in the South) to some of the intolerant things I heard. I often left church wondering how the things I heard floating around church, even from the ordained, could be true when I had experienced something different. I suppose historically the church has encouraged social action, and some churches today still do. (I was actually invited to a conference in another state to assist in discussing sexual assault in the Black community and what the church community’s responsibility is in creating a safe space for victims)/However, I’ve also noted the detriment that is caused STILL today by the things that I hear younger church-going folks saying.
At any rate, I got up this morning and stumbled across a video and immediately thought of your blog and this particular post. As a hip hop head and non-theist, I thought it was dope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAYVY2eLMck&feature=player_embedded
Be Righteous.
….lately i’ve been really going through a lot with religon…who’s lying…who’s telling the truth….what’s right…what’s wrong…..who fucked up everything to begin with.
Growing up, I went to some white churches and spent some time in black churces. There is something that always came from somewhere “deeper” (if you will) when I would attend a black church. Something that touched me deeper than words from some guy with a robe on behind a rostrum.
The black church is still alive……but just like me….i get the feeling (ESPECIALLY after 9/11) A LOOOOOT of people have A LOTTTTTT of questions about A LOOOOOOTTTTT of things.
Just saying…..
IT’S CULTURE CRAZY,
NOVA
http://www.novatribe.com
I don’t think the Black Church is dead, but rather the mentality of people having everything on their terms is very much alive. Choice, freedom, opportunity all important ideals for a people to embrace, but previous generations hedged those three ideals against what is best for the collective whole. Now, not so much, if you disagree with a religious leader’s approach or stance on an issue, you leave that group, sometime for another faction or you roll solo. Because you can become successful without being affiliated with a Black Church or with a religion at all, folks are more prone to take that route, even if it is at the expense of the collective group. For the record that is IF it is at the expense of the collective group. There is a cost to be paid for getting up early on a Sabbath day, being held to a routine and to a larger extend a social standard. Because people of faith are affected by the same pains of reality like non- believers are it is a bit of a tough sell to some, to be apart of church/religious group. Why would I do something when I do not get any tangible return? So, people decide to not invest the time or effort. The connection between Hip Hop and the question of whether the Black church is dead to me is simple: Authentication. It is completely possible to be a corporate general and have the skills and appreciation for hip hop as someone who did not even make it out of boot camp. Same can be said within the black church, the size of your congregation has replaced the depth of your teaching as the new standard of importance. I don’t think neither the Black church or Hip Hop is dead, but their collective value systems have been so comprised that they no long connect or reflect much of anything which used to be held as significance to their founding membership.
I guess the black church and mainstream hip-hop both at times subscribe to a prosperity theology which tends to turn people off certain people who yearn for more than what both have to offer. I am a buddhist but if more preachers were like Dr. MLK JR. or CT Vivien, I would probably be more inclined to check out a black church regardless of what my belief system may be.
I wonder why the cats who wrote the article about the death of the black church didn’t ask any black women to comment. Anyway, two things come to mind. First, we need to think about the black religious experience in a way that goes beyond the Christian experience. Two, yes it’s dead if one is thinking about at theopolitical institution that C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H.Mamiya wrote about in the book, The Black Church in the African American Experience.
Hey,
Do you know of a place to buy an audio copy of this blind boys song?!
I need this in my life.