The Black Church
AN OUTSIDERS GUIDE
SEVEN
“Who hath
believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he
shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry
ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were
our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded
for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to
his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
—Isaiah 53:1-6
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There is love here.
Family. Relationships that span generations. The Black Church in America is, in fact, an intimate portrait of America, with roots deep into centuries of struggle and hardship. The church wears its legacy proudly. It informs our traditions, culture and liturgy. Our greatest strength, however, is also, in many cases, our greatest weakness. We are so invested in our culture, in our tradition, that maintaining those tenants has become, in many cases, the church's entire purpose. The black church in America exists, in large measure, simply to perpetuate itself. The leadership is infested by corrupt and self-serving people whose main interest is money, status and power within the church. Cooperation among ministries is rare, and national alliances and organizations are largely impotent, existing only to elevate the status of their leadership and collect money from their member churches. All of which can be terribly confusing to those not raised within or properly indoctrinated into the black church. Handbooks and guides are few and far between. These are rules of the road you simply must know, must assimilate largely by osmosis. Transgressing any of these unwritten rules marks you as an outsider, to be met with polite smiles but certainly not a member of the family.
Anyone desiring a productive relationship with the black church,
or desiring to help tow the church out of the ditch its been
spinning its wheels in for decades (brought about by politics
and spats and lowest-common-denom-inator pandering) must
understand the passwords and secret handshakes endemic to this
culture.
The black church is not unique in this. It is, likely, mankind's
nature to look for rules and, where no rules exist, to invent
them, complicating the elegance and simplicity of the Gospel by
creating a hierarchy where none should exist. We have, all of
us, of all ethnicities, created our own Sanhedrin. Our own
Sadducees. We have re-sewn the temple veil and reinstated the
temple rules, long after Christ suffered and bled to do away
with all of that.
“I'm not the most learned of pastors,” The Reverend Larry L. Broxton, Pastor of Christ Memorial Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia, said, “but, beginning in the rural South at the turn of the 19th century, black Christians have brought into the church (especially the southern black Baptist church), old traditions that had either been taught in error, or have no basis in Scripture whatsoever.”
These traditions are now so deeply rooted within the church,
many ministers and pastors— caught between these traditions and
an education which illuminates the doctrinal error of many of
them— often face a daunting challenge of educating faulty
doctrine out of our churches.
“The pastorate taught me that school is an environment for
learning but the pastorate is not a place to use it
immediately,” Dr. Henry F. Johnson, Interim Pastor of Friendship
Missionary Baptist Church, observed. “Education is important
because knowledge is power, but you must know when to use it and
how to use it. I have found that it is more important to love
the people and establish a relationship in the first couple of
years of the pastorate. During this time you use your education
as you preach, teach, counsel, and exercise you administrative
gifts.”
The best reference for black church culture that I've seen is Church Administration in the Black Perspective by Floyd Massey, Jr. and Samuel Berry McKinney. They cover much of this in great detail, my observations here being a poor man's condensed version of their wonderful book.
There is absolutely no scientific basis for my observations here. These are the subjective observations of someone who has spent 43 years in black churches. Your mileage may vary. These are traditions we need to take a fresh look at and consider what is truly worth keeping and what should be done away with.
Many of my observations on the PraiseNet anger some black church folk here, but then I challenge them to present their own views on these issues. PraiseNet.Org has, for three years, existed as an available and open forum for black pastors. Of the hundreds of pastors we have contacted or attempted to contact, at this writing only three have opted to make any use of this online ministry. I've been chastised by black pastors for observations here on the Net, but these pastors have, to date, not opted to respond or express their point of view or join their voice to other voices here. These pastors and District associations' decision to not participate here is in no way an indictment of their ministry (the PraiseNet is not, of course, the be all and end all), but the lack of activism on the part of our black leaders is disappointing. If they don't want to participate here, please show me where they are participating, and we'll cheerfully support that effort.
Christopher J. Priest
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16 March 2004
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