Negro church

“ Methodist and Baptist ways of worship, songs and religious dances absorbed much from the Negroes and whatever there is in American religion today of stirring and wild enthusiasm, of loud conversions and every day belief in an anthropomorphic God owes its origin in a no small measure to the black man.
Of course most of the influence of the Negro preachers was thrown into their own churches and to their own people and it was from the Negro church as an organization that Negro religious influence spread most widely to white people. ”

“ The Negro church, in short, has served as a clearing house for the community. It has not only afforded opportunities for the evangelical minister coming with an inspiring message to revive the lukewarm, but every public man has had to reach the Negro through his church. ”

“ The first, and perhaps the only distinctive institution which the Negro has developed in this country is the Negro church, and it is in connection with his religion that we may expect to find, if anywhere, the indications of a distinctive Afro-American culture. The actual conditions [Pg 119] under which the African slaves were converted to Christianity have never been adequately investigated. We know, in a general way, that there was at first considerable opposition to admitting the Negro into the church because it was feared that it would impair the master's title to his slaves. ”

“ Such churches are really governments of men, and consequently a little investigation reveals the curious fact that, in the South, at least, practically every American Negro is a church member. Some, to be sure, are not regularly enrolled, and a few do not habitually attend services; but, practically, a proscribed people must have a social centre, and that centre for this people is the Negro church. ”

“ Because of fear of servile insurrection the whites would not permit many Negro churches to have an independent existence. The pressure once removed, however, groups of Negroes long waiting for religious freedom found adequate opportunity for exercising it in the organization of numerous Baptist churches. This was not in all cases abruptly effected, for the Negroes had no church buildings of their own and could not easily purchase them; but in their poverty they made unusual sacrifices to meet this emergency and whites liberally inclined assisted them in the rapid promotion of this work. ”

“ If Negroes were treated just as any other member of a white church, and given the same opportunity to advance to positions of honor within the church, ministers, priests, bishops, etc., regardless of color, there would be no Negro churches. ”

“ Since the Civil War, the Negro church as a factor in general uplift has become what the oppressed Negro longed to make it prior to that conflict. In the first place, Negroes regularly attend church whether Christians or sinners. They have not yet accumulated wealth adequate to the construction of clubhouses, amusement parks, and theaters, although dance halls have attracted many. Whether they derive any particular joy [Pg 268] therefrom or not, the Negroes must go to church, to see their friends, as they are barred from social centers open to whites. ”

“ It may also be necessary to state, in order to allay the fears of our friends and prevent the reckless criticism of our detractors, that the defects of the Negro church are found more or less in churches of other races. They are the same in kind but differ in degree, on account of difference in environment. They are not inherent in the race, but are found wherever the environments call for them. It may be laid down as an axiomatic truth that there has never been and there is not a perfect church. ”

“ Although the State may chide an outspoken minister here and there, it will hardly be so unwise so to restrict the Negro church as to interfere materially with its development as the South has done in the case of the Negro school in making Negro education altogether industrial. The church serves as a moral force, a power acting as a restraint upon the bad and stimulating the good to further moral achievement. ”

“ CHAPTER VI THE SCHISM AND THE SUBSEQUENT SITUATION AN important factor in the growth of the Negro Church was that the Negroes found the white churches of their choice less friendly and finally saw them withdrawn from the churches in the North to perpetuate slavery. In the South, the slaves and free Negroes had to accept whatever religious privileges were allowed them ”

“ There are those like Bishop John Hurst believing that the Negro church must play the rôle of keeping the fire burning on the altar until the day when men again become reverent, and that the Negro's liberal interpretation of the Christian religion, based upon the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, must gain ascendancy and be accepted by a regenerated world of to-morrow. ”

“ Churches which once annually raised sums for the maintenance of various Negro schools have now, as a majority, restricted their contributions to Hampton and Tuskegee, where, it is believed, the ultimate distinctions of the whites and blacks can, by the process of safeguarded education, be best effected. Practically all of the so-called [Pg 309] Christian philanthropists have followed their example.
The Negro church, however, finds itself facing still another problem. During recent years Negroes have manifested more interest in the redemption of Africa. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the ties which have bound the Negro church organization to the whites were not such as could be severed by a mere change in the management of church affairs. The Negroes had already been divided from the whites by an unwritten law. The upheaval of the Civil War merely furnished the occasion for the separation. There still remained among the northern whites numerous philanthropists who desired to help them in the promotion of religion and morality. ”

“ The rise of Negro Catholic churches in the District of Columbia as well as throughout the United States has been less extensive for the reason that not very many Negroes have been attracted to this denomination because of its ritualistic appeal, and those who have become adherents to the Catholic faith have been treated with so much more of the spirit of Christ than they have been by other sects, that the tendency toward independent church establishments has not been so pronounced. ”

“ The masses must be elevated above dependence on another race for what they shall eat or drink or the wherewithal they shall be clothed. The saving of young men and women of the race from those pursuits in which they are unduly exposed to the temptations of the low and the contemptible of both races, is becoming a most important concern of many Negro churches. ”

“ But because there never was a perfect church is no reason why we should speak lightly or condone the defects of the Negro Church. Our ideal of the Negro Church is one which will have as few defects as possible. ”

“ The Presbyterians, much more liberal in their attitude toward the blacks than the Episcopalians, manifested an unfailing interest in the condition of these people far down. Although the church as a national body receded from its early position of attacking slavery and thereafter compromised with the institution, there was among these people in the various parts of the country a continuous effort to promote the religious instruction of the Negroes. ”

“ In the midst of the health crusades and the community service organizations favorably impressing the public, the Negro church in many urban centers where it might have continued conservative, found itself facing the alternative of either responding to these social needs of the membership or seeing its constituency gradually drawn away by agencies which would. In case some social uplift agency failed to attract the youth, they too often drifted to the dance halls or places where their needs were supplied in the midst of vices. Many churches have, therefore, modified their program. ”

“ Much is said of the inconstancy of the negro, but my experience convinces me, that where the negro has been brought up in the knowledge and practice of religion, he is as constant as any white Catholic under the circumstances. Bad training and ignorance degenerate their mind and heart as it does with the white population. We are trying to raise means to build a church for that settlement. I regret very much that the Commission has been obliged to diminish the allocation. ”

“ Depravity, Sin, Redemption, Heaven, Hell, and Damnation are preached twice a Sunday after the crops are laid by; and few indeed of the community have the hardihood to withstand conversion. Back of this more formal religion, the Church often stands as a real conserver of morals, a strengthener of family life, and the final authority on what is Good and Right.
Thus one can see in the Negro church to-day, reproduced in microcosm, all the great world from which the Negro is cut off by color-prejudice and social condition. ”

“ Answers to such questions can come only from a study of Negro religion as a development, through its gradual changes from the heathenism of the Gold Coast to the institutional Negro church of Chicago.
Moreover, the religious growth of millions of men, even though they be slaves, cannot be without potent influence upon their contemporaries. The Methodists and Baptists of America owe much of their condition to the silent but potent influence of their millions of Negro converts. ”

“ Negro leaders to damn even the natives in Africa. The white church then, has not only failed to preach the social gospel of Jesus, but is preventing the Negroes from carrying that message to their own people. In other words, the principles of the humble Nazarene must be crushed out to make money and perpetuate caste.
This and other handicaps, however, have not prevented the progress of the church. Probably the most promising aspect is that Negro ministers of to-day measure up to a higher standard than formerly. They are not diverted from their course by politics and the like. ”

“ The second reason is that the Church is not only the religious but the social center for the negro, largely taking the place with him, which the secret and benevolent societies hold among the white people. Very few are Roman Catholics. The Roman Church has not made the progress among the negroes, which one would expect of the Church which has such a hold on the common peoples of Southern Europe. Only about four thousand are members of the Presbyterian Church; and to the Episcopal Church belong only 9,000 communicants. ”

“ The Negro churchmen, moreover, are not any more conservative than other leaders of the people. They may be more generally effective because of their greater influence. That the Negro church is conservative is due to teaching and to tradition, and it is fortunate that Providence has had it so. Acting as a conservative force among the Negroes, the church has been a sort of balance wheel. ”

“ This does not mean that irreligious men will masquerade as spiritual advisers but that, inasmuch as the church as an institution is considered a welfare agency as well as a spiritual body to edify souls, some Negroes, interested in the social uplift of the race, are learning to accomplish this task by accepting leadership in the church.
Negroes see in the ministry, moreover, a new mission. The world, having now gone mad after the trifles of this life, is sadly in need of a redeemer to save men from themselves. ”

“ A scheme is now in agitation for the full consent of the Presbytery for establishing an African Church in the city of Charleston."
In 1854 the report of the General Assembly on the instruction of the Negroes in the slave States said that instead of abating, the interest in the religious welfare of the Negroes was increasing. In their houses of worship provision at once special and liberal was made for the accommodation [Pg 158] of the people of color so that they might enjoy the privileges of the sanctuary in common with the whites. ”

“ The attitude of Negro church groups is of especial significance in light of the church’s undeniably great influence within the Negro community. The number of ministers and prominent laymen among Negro improvement and advancement groups is unusually high. Statewide Negro church associations almost without exception have endorsed the Court decision and have called for the ending of racial segregation. ”

“ The Negro ambitious to rule, moreover, finds in the church about the only institution in which he may freely exercise authority. Fortunately [Pg 279] here the Church and State are no longer connected. In the extension of the boon of toleration, the Negroes in countries in which they have been found in large numbers, have been permitted to conduct their spiritual affairs as they like. There are in the South to-day, however, white men who regret that immediately after the Civil War they permitted the Negroes to establish their separate churches. ”

“ Such elevation of the blacks by these more liberal denominations, of course, incurred the displeasure and opposition of the aristocratic churchmen to the extent that these liberal denominations could not grant the Negroes as much freedom of participation in the church work as they were disposed to do. ”

“ As there was a law against teaching slaves to read and write, there were no educated preachers. If a Negro desired to preach to his fellow-slaves, he had to secure written permission from his master. While Negroes were sometimes baptized into the communion of the Church,—usually the Episcopal Church,—they were allowed only in the gallery, or organ-loft, of white congregations, in small numbers. ”