Think Piece: The Black Church: Now, More Than Ever

Black America is under siege. Black faith institutions, particularly Black churches, are being undermined on a number of fronts – culturally, via disunity, via fear, paternalism and misogyny, and plain old bribes. Though there is a historic precedent to undermine the lives of African-Americans, African-Americans are weathering new and continuing assaults on a number of fronts:

Propping up a new black “leadership” (consider Armstrong Williams, Janice Brown, Condoleeza Rice and other “pet negroes”) by white conservatives, and;

Perhaps the most insidious and evil affront to African-Americans has been to its children. During the years of our first “Black” president, Bill Clinton, examine the following excerpt from the Monday, May 9 edition of the DiversityInc.com newsletter:

To gain access to hundreds of HIV-infected foster children, federally funded researchers promised in writing to provide an independent advocate to safeguard the kids’ well-being as they tested potent AIDS drugs. But most of the time, that special protection never materialized, an Associated Press review has found.

(…) The practice ensured that foster children, mostly poor or minority, received care from world-class researchers at government expense, slowing their rate of death and extending their lives. But it also exposed a vulnerable population to the risks of medical research and drugs that were known to have serious side effects in adults and for which the safety for children was unknown.

This modern-day Tuskegee Experiment has been coupled with several other affronts to African-Americans:

A quick example of how people from other countries perceive black people can be found via the May 19 edition of the DiversityInc.com newsletter:

President Fox’s comment reveals what he thinks of African-Americans – we are the lowest of the low. What helped Fox’s perspective? It is not necessarily Hip-Hop but, it is the same type of corporations that fuel American media.

2. The Bush Administration’s Approach to Gangs: explore the following commentary by Earl Ofari Hutchinson from the May 12 BlackPR.com/BlackNews.com e-mail newsletter:

“The Congressional panic over gangs makes even less sense considering that juvenile crime, according to FBI crime figures, has dropped, and more states faced with ballooning deficits have scrapped their lock em up and toss the key measures. That approach has dumped more than 2 million prisoners in America’s jails. That gives America the dubious distinction of running the world’s largest prison warehouse system. States now opt for job training, drug treatment, and counseling programs as more cost effective ways to deal with crime. The bill also flies in the face of the much-touted anti-gang initiative that Bush unveiled in his State of the Union Address in January. Bush said that he’d shell out $150 million to youth education and violence prevention programs that target at-risk youth. Bush promptly dispatched wife, Laura, to several inner city neighborhoods to meet with community leaders, educators, and gang intervention specialists to get a White House handle on the problem.”

Laura Bush, a de facto “Anti-gang Czar?” This scenario should cause The Black Church to pray and “just say no!”

Speaking of taking things for granted; politically, the Democratic Party has taken black votes for granted for decades with little in return for black communities. Progressive and black voices within the party are being pushed aside in order to make the Party a light version of the Republican Party by directing its energies to win the votes of those in the “Red States,” “Soccer Moms,” and “NASCAR Dads,” which are code words for white lower- or middle-class voters. The Democratic Party has so much disrespect for black communities they believe if they make some cursory or last-minute visit to churches, the NAACP, Urban League, or black neighborhoods, blacks will come out in large numbers and vote for their candidates. Historically, African-Americans have responded to these weak overtures; but according to the May 25 edition of the Diversity.com newsletter, Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman, Howard Dean feels a rising tide of black resentment:

Taking black voters for granted is a long-standing problem for the party that dates to the 1960s, said Dean, who promised changes in strategy even as he cited diversity at the top of the Democratic National Committee.

In terms of politics, some black churches are being rented via faith-based grants to help them develop or maintain programs. On the surface, this looks like normal, everyday resource development for nonprofit corporations (many churches have the Internal Revenue Service [IRS] designation 501 (c) 3). However, when the Bush administration uses these ministers as “photo-ops” and these ministers sing Bush’s praises because they got grant money or because he resonates their concerns regarding gay rights issues or abortion, it creates a number of illusions: that significant numbers of black people support him and that George Bush cares about nonwhite and/or poor people. Conversely, these illusions are far from the truth, especially since he does not support any raises in the minimum wage and believes in a new type of “voodoo economics” (a term used by Ronald Reagan criticizing George Herbert Walker Bush’s [“Dubya’s” father] approach to address the nation’s economy during the 1980 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination) to craft a budget with deep cuts to social programs while making the budget to fund the occupation of Iraq a separate document.

My own commitment

As a faith-based organization advocate and consultant for over eleven years, all I wanted to do is to make sure the community development corporations (CDCs) associated with or developed by faith institutions (not the faith institution itself) to have more opportunities to secure grants. For the faith institution itself, I wanted it to have representation on more corporate and nonprofit boards and be involved or have access to any community economic development projects initiated by the public and private sectors. In short, I wanted it to serve as a community watchdog and address equity and justice issues while speaking for the powerless or the ignored.

President Bush, white conservatives, and their black flunkies have bastardized the faith-based (which is not just Christian) movement to control particularly black churches and create a white-controlled, fundamentalist Christian “New World Order.” Essentially, Bush, et al have become self-appointed, Koran-desecrating, Christian prophets and begun a religious/social/cultural Armageddon with the premise that “our (Christian, conservative, white) God is better than your God (insert your choice here).” Some black ministers are pawns in this war and are allowing a new sort of blasphemy to surface. Nevertheless, this does not mean that black faith-based organizations should not seek government grant money because it is our tax money; it is just that this money should be sought and accepted with extreme caution. Any mistakes in the use of this money make have serious consequences for our black religious leaders, especially if they are unafraid to challenge the president’s policies. And for those black conservative leaders that, in addition to getting government grant money, believe that they also have access and influence with the president remember this: just because you can walk through the front door of the White House does not mean you are IN the White House!

For better or worse, America, unwittingly, has made Black America its conscience; America speaks of freedom, yet African-Americans have known Massa’s lash and Jim Crow, America speaks of justice, yet is committed to making black people the overwhelming population in its justice system, America speaks of opportunity, yet undermines black children by not properly investing in its public education system (which could be a major influence on low black and Latino high school graduation rates). In short, as in the movie, The Matrix, black people are the “glitch in the system” and points out when the system changes things unfairly or without warning towards its citizens. The Black Church, as Black America’s most stable and prominent institution, bears the brunt of speaking out against the daily indignities leveled at African-Americans.

However, as one of the main defenders and advocates of Black America, it stands to “clean its own house” to solidify its stature as a leader and advocate in black communities. First, it must remain prophetic. But the main challenge to one of its greatest functions is government money; receiving grant money is fine to support programs, however, it should not purchase silence to administrations that are counterproductive to Black America. The Black Church must remain vigilant in telling America when it is right and when it is wrong. It cannot mimic much of the news media and cower to Bush. Consider the following quote by Reverend Grayland Hagler, national president of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice and is pastor at the Plymouth Congregational Church UCC in Washington, D.C.:

This quote raises a number of important questions:

In relation to the third question, we should all be cognizant of President Bush’s uncanny ability to distance people or institutions that do not agree or follow his ideology (or the ideology given to him by Republican strategist, Karl Rove) without sanction. Mull over his association with former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Whenever Powell used his own ideas or failed to follow the company line, the administration seemed to “keep him out of the loop,” so to speak. Notice that Mr. Powell has become more critical of the administration since he has resigned. (Now, if only the Church can intellectually “lay hands” on new Secretary of State Rice but then, I guess there are some things even The Black Church cannot do. We can always pray for her enlightenment.)

Moreover, within its ability to be prophetic The Black Church must be able to decipher and challenge American myth. America likes to sell dreams and illusions. To its citizens it promotes the “self-made” man or woman, where an individual rises above all odds to individual success. It is an extension “if one works hard, one will succeed” illusion. In reality, there is no such thing as the “self-made” person; “successful” people are supported by the people around them whether it is moral support, financial support, or informational support. Many people get jobs because they “know somebody” or part of some informal network comprising of friends, neighbors and relatives. In essence, many people succeed because of communal relationships. Churches create community; churches are communities. Churches, especially black churches, must remind America that many people work hard and do not “succeed” as they work without health insurance, low wages, and the like. It must also be wary of the African-Americans it likes to promote. For example, America loves Oprah Winfrey – she is safe because she refuses to challenge systems or speak out on anything that truly harms Black America. However, there is something Oprah “preaches” that could be viewed as the antithesis of The Black Church. To highlight this observation Nelson (2002) notes the following: