The Black Church: An Obituary?

Last week,  Eddie Glaude, Jr., Ph.D. announce that  the Black Church Is dead. Whenever someone fallaciously announces the “death” of an institution, it usually means the end of an institution as we currently know it.  Our knowledge of an institution changes with different insights and historical realities.  It’s really not  big deal as it seems.  It is not a “death” per se (still, I object to death as a metaphor), but our ideas do change with different revelations being revealed to us.  As a Black Church Studies scholar,  Glaude’s article is a consequence of what happens when a group of intellectuals sharing a similar religious tradition (the Black Church) repeat the same metanarrative over and over again, that Black religion (really, they mean Black Christianity) has always been about first,  liberation from slavery, segregation, and economic injustice; and second, healing from these brutalities.  Homogeneity is the source of death.  The discovery of heterogeneity, diversity within black churches, is what will bring life.  There has never been a liberal progressive construct known as THE  black church.  There has always been Black Churches, with our evangelicals, our conservatives, our moderates, our liberals, our progressive, our orthodox and our heretics.  The problem is exacerbated by Black-controlled media; when we get carictures of African-American Christianity on the silver screen such as Tyler Perry movies which I absolutely loathe more than Disney films, the Black church tradition falls into stereotypes and becomes nothing more than a joke. I will reserve the rest of my commentary for my paper presentation for the regional AAR in Dallas Sunday morning.

Here is a response from ReligionDispatches: The Black Church is Dead—Long Live the Black Church | Religion & Theology

Truth and Peace,

Rod

RodtRDH

Formerly known as Rod of Alexandria, Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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