Chapter 16
Blacks to the Future
Many Pentecostals and charismatics know the name and the place: Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles, California. That's where, in 1906, "Holy Ghost power" fell in a "new Pentecost."
But few know that African-Americans were at the heart of that revival. William J. Seymour, the pastor and spiritual leader at 312 Azusa Street, was black. So was the majority of his congregation.
Soon, however, the spiritual firestorm swept across racial lines, making multiracial fellowship and leadership the dominant mark of Pentecostalism during the early years of this century.
Before long, the races went separate ways, segregating into the predominantly black Pentecostal denominations, such as the Church of God in Christ, and the predominantly white ones, like the Assemblies of God.1
As the century nears an end, there are signs that people of color are once again at the forefront of a wave of spiritual power. A new survey of America's black congregations reveals that black Americans will increasingly look to forms of Pentecostalism for spiritual vitality. Sometime in the 21st century, the survey shows, half of all black churchgoers will be Pentecostals.2
Speaking with cautious optimism, the two scholars who conducted the survey, C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, say that
Page 177
despite its many toils, tribulations, and cares, black religion is viable and showing signs of renewal and change.3
They are not alone in their assessment. Roof and McKinney project that black Protestantism "should continue to grow numerically and increase in importance as a societal force" into the next century.4
Black Church Vitality
The black Pentecostal and Baptist denominations in particular should extend their growth through the 1990s because of high fertility rates among members, strong communal bonds, and the black churches' tenacious commitment to civil rights.
Lincoln and Mamiya focus on the seven largest U.S. Black denominations. These groups claim 80 percent of the nation's aggregate total of 24 million black churchgoers, about 77 percent of whom are Protestant. The largest U.S. black organization of any kind is the 7.5 million-member national Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.5
Although the National Council of Churches' Yearbooks have little current statistical information about the black churches, figures for the Pentecostal and Baptist denominations in the 1950s and 1960s (the most recent available) place their combined membership at more than 3 million.6 If they have grown by even 2 percent a year they would not total four or five million.
The oldest black denominations are the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which were founded after the Revolutionary War by free blacks influenced by John Wesley's Methodist revival movement. Closely related is the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Together, these three churches during the early 1980s had more than 4 million members.7
The seventh major black denomination is the Church of God in Christ, which grew out of the Azusa Street revival. It claims about 3.8 million members.8 According to Time religion editor Richard Ostling, it's the fastest-growing major denomination and "probably the fastest-growing major denomination of any kind" in America.9
The largest church sanctuary in the United States is owned by the Crenshaw Christian Center, a mostly black congregation in Los Angeles. With a seating capacity of 10,400, a campus of thirty-two acres, and
Page 178
a constituency said to top 16,000, the charismatic congregation pastored by Frederick Price is truly in the "metachurch" class.10
Price's U.S. crusades and nationally broadcast television ministry here have given him a high profile. He is regarded as "a role model for many young pastors of the emerging independent churches," according to Charisma magazine.11
But Price's success isn't one-of-a-kind.
Nine of the top fifteen U.S. churches with the fastest-growing attendance are predominantly black congregations, according to a 1990 survey by church growth specialist John N. Vaughan of Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri.12
The black charismatic wave of the 1990s includes at least half a dozen congregations in the multiple-thousands class. Many draw a majority of members in their twenties and thirties. A colorful variety of sprited music and hand-lifting worship, "word-of-faith" preaching, and old-time Bible teaching characterize these congregations. The unifying element appears to be an upbeat message of hope and self-esteem.
And that is good news indeed for a community that that often been downtrodden and cast to the margins of society during the past 400 years.
Roots and Fruits
Two-thirds of American black Protestants trace their ancestry to Africa.13 But as their African culture receded over the decades, they forged a distinctive religious history and group identity. Black Protestants — especially those with Methodist and Baptist backgrounds — came to define and interpret their experience in this country through "revivalistic Protestantism."
"Early on, the black church emerged as an important institution, second only to the family, as a symbol and embodiment of racial solidarity and the quest for freedom and justice," say Roof and McKinney.14
Though it has been — and will be — under strain and assault, the black church is still the central institution in the African-American community and the best hope for its future. The black church is one of the few stable and coherent institutions to emerge from slavery.15
Page 179
William Pannell, who directs the study program for black pastors at Fuller Seminary, said the black church "occupies a more central place in the lives, traditions, and day-to-day struggles" of black people than the church does for other racial groups. "The black church is both integrated into the African-American culture, and it is a source of strength for leadership and community development . . . It's the one constant," Pannell said.16
Black churches are not only the focal point for organizing civil-rights and black political movements; they are also the cradle nurturing what is arguably the most religious race of people in the world.17
Surveys by Barna and Gallup, among others, consistently show that U.S. blacks hold stronger, more evangelical and traditional beliefs about the inspiration of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus, and presence of God, and the evidence of miracles than do Christians of other races. Blacks also are far more likely to put their beliefs into practice in terms of church membership, attendance, and denominational loyalty. And they pray and study the Bible more.18
All in the Black Family
The families of the country's 65,000 black congregations need strong faith to face the day-to-day struggles confronting them.
"Urban congregations are surrounded by neighborhoods demoralized by spiraling drug use, crime and family disintegration; the churches face a looming shortage of qualified clergy; and the very relevance of many congregations is being challenged," writes Ostling.19
But there is good reason for hope in the black church. Many positive models can take blacks to the future of God's kingdom.
Robert Franklin, dean of black church studies at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, foresees several trends for black churches in the 1990s:
Black churches will put more emphasis on ministries dedicated to family stability.
Many educated, affluent, black boomers will return to the churches they temporarily turned their backs on while in college or while starting to advance professionally. "As upwardly mobile blacks abandon the inner-core central city," Franklin said, "they will retain their attachment to their home church, even though they move to the suburbs. But, unlike their white counterparts, these buppies will drive back to the inner city to worship on Sundays." Even pastors will be a part of this commuter pattern.
Page 180
Because of the federal government's withdrawal of the "social safety net," inner-city folk are becoming wards of the church. This will put increased pressure on churches to provide basic services to the inner-city poor. "I'm hopeful this will . . . [produce] an increased ministry to the homeless, substance abusers, people who are hungry . . .," Franklin said. "A cadre of young black women and men are preparing to minister in these areas."20
C. Eric Lincoln, professor of religion and culture at Duke, anticipates a decisive movement of the larger black churches into black economic development. These churches are building schools and apartment complexes, and sometimes developing supermarkets and plazas, he said.
Though this is "not yet what you'd call a trend," Lincoln told me, "it is reminiscent of the early days of the black church before slavery. Then the church was the only agent of relief for black people anywhere."
Lincoln points to the work of the Congress of National Black Churches, composed of the seven largest U.S. black denominations, as a signpost for decade direction. The congress is experimenting with group insurance, a common banking pool, and common purchasing for clusters of churches.
Other cooperative ventures hold promise. In Brooklyn, fifty-five churches have banded together to help clear neighborhoods of slum housing taken over by narcotics trade. Volunteers renovate the reclaimed houses for low-income families.
"This is very definitely the direction the black church will be moving," Lincoln says with enthusiasm. "But it takes longer for smaller churches to get involved."21
Bridge Street African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn includes a growing number of buppies. They are, says pastor Fred Lucas, "looking for the
Page 181
spiritual piece in their lives. They want to channel something back into the community."
And they do, reports Jane Redmont in Progressions, the Lilly Endowment report:
Doctors, lawyers and other professionals have organized service-delivery organizations. The church helps operate a shelter for homeless men, provides pastoral care to people with AIDS, and offers walk-in counseling. Its credit union is the fastest-growing in the United States.22
The Graying of Black Clergy
But the black church turns gray when the focus changes to the clergy. The median age of the nation's black pastors is fifty-two, meaning that fewer young blacks are entering the ministry.23
"In the past, the black pastor was the best-educated and most articulate person in the community," Lincoln explained. "Then came the resurgence of black education in the civil rights movement . . . So, many young men who would have gone into the clergy twenty years ago don't look in that direction today if they're bright and able; they look forward to careers in other fields. No longer do the seminaries get the best candidates."24
At the same time, the black church doesn't provide significant health or retirement benefits for its underpaid clergy. Just to survive, the typical pastor must stay on long after he'd normally retire. "This means the most prestigious churches are in the hands of superannuated people," Lincoln added, "and the young, aspiring clergy have nowhere to go. It's a waiting game."25
Lincoln thinks the problem ultimately will right itself. The number of black seminarians rose nearly 500 percent between 1970 and 1989 — from 808 to 3,814.26 Also, increasing numbers of black women are going to seminary. But so far, most black churches, especially Baptists (the largest group of black churches) and the Church of God in Christ, have been unwilling to call many women as pastors — even though the active membership of the typical black Christian congregation is 70 percent female!27
Page 182
The possibility of black clergy appointments is greater in white mainline churches, Lincoln says. "But they're disillusioned with those prospects because they are considered 'showplace pieces' and exotic . . . They resent being put on display."28
In the past, major black church leaders have promoted integration, visualizing a society in which black and white live together in equality and peace. But black churchgoers may choose a different path. For some, that will mean choosing to attend a distant black congregation rather than a nearby integrated church.
In the North and the West, "blacks are no longer drifting into white churches when they move up the social scale," writes Richard Ostling. He quotes John Hurst Adams, senior bishop of the A.M.E. church in Atlanta: "We are not buying the integration route. We never have and never will. We seek an inclusive society that need not be integrated but values diversity and respects it."29
Others, like Anthony Evans, pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, a large black congregation in Dallas, Texas, seek to build bridges across the color line. Joint urban ventures link black and white churches: "Intact" families in white churches relate directly through guidance, spiritual support, and ministry to single-parent families in black congregations.30
Carlton Pearson, founding pastor of 3,500-member Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center in Tulsa, is convinced that God will bring whites and blacks to the future that started in 1906. "What God intended to happen at the dawn of the century was an integration of the people at the Azusa [Street Mission] outpouring," he told Charisma magazine. "I believe we will at last accomplish that goal at the close of the century."31
