The Black Church Essay

Kelly Brown Douglas begins by posing a series of questions, including, “Who is the Black Christ?” and “Is the Black Christ Enough?” (6-7) For Douglas, the Black Christ, “…represents God’s urgent movement in human history to set Black captives free from the demons of White racism” (3). The question of “Who is the Black Christ?” is addressed in Chapter 3. The question of “Is the Black Christ enough?” is addressed in Chapters 4 and 5, as Douglas critically examines the relationship of the Black Christ to the Black community and ends with addressing what womanist theology is and why there is a need for it in understanding the Black Christ.

Since the arrival of African Americans in this country blacks have always had differing experiences. Consequently, African-Americans have had to forge a self-identity out of what has been passed on to them as fact about their true selves. History has wrought oppression and subjugation to this particular race of people and as a result, certain institutions were formed in order aid African-Americans, culturally, spiritually and economically. The African-American Church has served of one such institution. From the time of slavery, though outlawed, many slaves found ways to congregate and form their own "churches", away from the one-sided and bias lessons about the bible that they were being taught in the white church. The white ministers and

The development of Black Theology in the United was one that shocked the nation as a whole. While in slavery, Blacks had to sneak and hold church services. This was partly because Whites felt that Blacks were not able to be accepted into heaven, and they believed that once one as a Christian they could no longer be enslaved. So to appease their conscience they would not allow Blacks to take part in theology. Due to these issues Black Theology soon originated within the United States.

"The Black church functioned as revolutionary unity during slavery." The African Methodist Episcopal Church, not formally organized until 1816 but dates back to 1787 refused to abide by the Jim Crow laws. In protest, they all left the church and established their own genre of worship. The founders of the African Methodist church were uneducated, illiterate ex-slaves. Despite that, they had a clear sense of their dignity and worth. They rejected the irrational treatment of their White counterparts, who considered them as a nuisance in the Church. Whites wanted to keep Africans within the church separate. They even created legal obstacles for separation. As a result, the African Methodist formed independent churches in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc. The African Methodist Episcopal Church was able to provide for its self, in its early stages, within twelve years (1841 to 1853) the Church built and remodeled two churches, which cost about $16,000. The A.M.E. Church has given African people an independent hierarchy that recognizes our individuality, it has empowered African-Americans. In celebration, Methodists sought to render services to their people, schools were built and charitable programs were developed, aiming to lift the spirits of the new freed men. Educating their people, young and old, were

For almost eight decades, enslaved African-Americans living in the Antebellum South, achieved their freedom in various ways—one being religion—before the demise of the institution of slavery. It was “freedom, rather than slavery, [that] proved the greatest force for conversion among African Americans in the South” (94). Starting with the Great Awakening and continuing long after the abolition of slavery, after decades of debate, scholars conceptualized the importance of religion for enslaved African-Americans as a means of escaping the brutalities of daily life. Overall, Christianity helped enslaved African American resist the degradation

The free African Americans had created their own Church it was known as a Black Church. They had to make their own church to talk freely of their beliefs and because the white people didn’t want them in theirs. (Doc

Such unity and self-determination was evidenced in 1801, when Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church published a hymnal by and for African Americans (Costen, 81). Hymns have served black people in their everyday lives and had and have

During the Civil Rights era, Black churches were well established social and political power bases for African-Americans. Their enormous presence naturally sanctioned them with the political power to lead Black people in the movement for civil rights. In the late 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, the Black Church functioned as the institutional center for Black mobilization. They provided an organizational base and meeting place, for African-Americans to strategize their moves in the ongoing fight against racial segregation and oppression. As Black Churches became the epicenter of the social and political struggles for Black equality, they increasingly became targets for racially motivated violence. An extensive assault on members of a Black community took place by burning a Black Church. The bombing and burning of Black churches during this time translated into an attack on the core of civil rights activism, as well as upon the larger Black religious community. The most infamous example of racist American church destruction occurred on September 15, 1963. When the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was fire bombed, the explosion was felt by the entire Black community. Four children killed in the attack, several others injured, and a community's sense of security within their church was forever

The element of worship has always been an essential part of the Black American culture. Black Americans “are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole.” 87% of blacks vs. 83% of all Americans affiliated with a religion according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public

In this legendary,and beloved classic novel,”To Kill a Mockingbird” it have many places that have a symbolic meaning in the fraudulent town of Maycomb, Alabama. Some of those places are the courthouse, the Radley’s place, and the most iconic of all is the African American church. To encapsulated this particular church I have to scrutinize the place itself.

One of the first things that attracted the African American slaves to Christianity was a way of obtaining the salvation of theirs souls based on the Christian’s idea of a future reward in heaven or punishment in hell, which did not exist in their primary religion. The religious principles inherited from Africa sought purely physical salvation and excluded the salvation of the soul. However, they did believe in one supreme God, which made it easier for them to assimilate Christianity.

In 1816, Richard Allen founded the first African-American led church in the country, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The African Methodist Episcopal Church was the first major religious denomination in the western world that originated because of sociological and not theological differences. It was the first African-American denomination organized and incorporated in the US. The church was established in what was known as the Blacksmith Shop Meeting House. “By 1786 blacks made up about 10 percent of the Methodist church in the United States, and though whites and blacks often worshiped together, blacks enjoyed no real freedom or equality. Segregated seating was typical; the area reserved for blacks was usually called the “Negro Pew” or the “African Corner.”

Black theology can be traced back to when slavery times. During this time Christianity became the blacks man’s purpose of life,

Long before their contact with whites, Africans were a strongly religious, and deeply spiritual people. During the early history of slavery, the African American spirituality was often seen by whites as a pagan faith. These rituals and dogmas were seen by whites as Voodoo, Hoodoo, Witchcraft, and superstitions. They often commented on these "pagan practices," and fetishes, and were threatened by them. As a result, great effort was put on eradicating these practices, and many were lost within a generation.# Although tremendous efforts was placed on eradicating the “superstitious” religious beliefs of the African slaves, they were not immediately introduced to the religion of white slave masters, Christianity. Many planters resisted the idea of converting slaves to Christianity out of a fear that baptism would change a slave's legal status. The black population was generally untouched by Christianity until the religious revivals of the 1730s and 1740s. The Bible was manipulated to support the institution of slavery and its inhumane practices. Christianity was used to suppress and conform slaves. Slaveholders, priests, and those tied to the Church undermined the beliefs of the millions of African-Americans converts.# White Christianity was used to justify the enslavement of blacks. By the early nineteenth century, slaveholders had adopted the view that Christianity would make slaves more submissive and orderly.

I jumped at the opportunity to complete the extra credit assignment because of the topic. I have always wanted to attend an African American Baptist Church. I was raised Catholic in a predominantly white community and for the chance to experience something different was appealing. I’ve seen the stereotypes in movies and on TV about what an African American Baptist church looks like but I wanted to experience it myself. I wasn’t sure on what to expect but kept an open mind about the situation.