Talk:Black church

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Good article Black church has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
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Assessment comments
To-do list for Black church: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Add content on history since reconstruction.
  • Add content comparing and contrasting Black Church with Religious Right and American Christianity as a whole.
  • Expand sections on Black Denominations and black congregations within other denominations.
  • Add section on Non-Black Members of Black Churches
  • Add pictures
Priority 3  

Contents

[edit] Expansion

Wow, this could really do with an expansion.--Pharos 09:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I tried to work on it a bit. However I'm not a member of a black church. I'm also white, but that's not necessarily relevant. I know a white woman who is very active in a Pentecostal "black church." I'd considered writing a bit on non-blacks in the black church, there are several whites raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church because their parents joined during the 1960s Civil Rights movement, but I worry that could sound offensive if done wrong.--T. Anthony 08:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
There was a bunch of content in the African American Culture article that was really offtopic for that article but is perfect for this one. I just moved it all over. Problem is that it really needs cleanup and is greatly unreferenced. Also don't feel like you have to be Black to contribute to these pages. That's how we end up with POV issues. Personally, I feel like a section on Non-Blacks in the Black church would be a good section as long as you can find references for it. CJ 19:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok so I've done quite a bit of work on the history section but it still needs work in the following areas:
Thanks CJ 19:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
You did a good job. When I first came to this article it was just a sentence or two. I tried to expand it, but I wasn't satisfied with my efforts. This is much better.--T. Anthony 03:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] references

Currently there is only one section which remains unrefernced. That is the "National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc" section.--Sefringle 02:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. CJ 02:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold

There are a few sentences starting with "Because" or "But". Bad grammar, but overall the article is fine. Alientraveller 17:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I've gone through and cleaned up the grammar some. CJ 19:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I've made a few minor changes (mostly adding internal links), but the article looks great to me. BTW, it would be great if we had a wiki article on "racial uplift". I wanted to create an internal link on that term, but that article doesn't exist. I think the concept started with Booker T. Washington (maybe), and different understandings of this concept led to divisions in the National Baptist Convention in the 1950s and 60s, resulting in the splitting off of the Progressive National Baptist Convention. Speaking of which, would it be appropriate in the current article to mention this divergence in thinking among Black church leadership in the 1960s? Some Black ministers were not in favor of the outspoken, activist push for civil rights, while other ministers thought it was a travesty not to speak out and act out in protest of civil rights abuses. This might warrant a paragraph in the article. This article is just about ready for FA I think! Timotheos 16:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to get the social issues section expanded, especially with regard to some of the differences of opinion during the Civil Rights era. But it's difficult to find reliable sources because everything is so embellished. But if we can find the sources for it then yes it would definitly be warranted. There are also some theological differences that should also be expanded upon. Provided sources for them can be located. CJ 17:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Here's another online source that appears to be fairly NPOV and academic. [1] There might be something here you can use on the differences in attitudes re. social activism. Timotheos 19:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll take a look. CJ 19:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Black church
SCORES IN KEY AREAS
Legality A A A A
Neutrality A A A A
Writing B B B
Sources B B B
Citations A A A A


The only problems I find are only 13 footnotes and some sections completely made of short sentences. There seems to be areas where information could be sewn together. For example, in the two sentences, "The first of these churches was the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Richard Allen was a former slave and an influential deacon and elder at the integrated and affluent St. George's Methodist Church in Philadelphia.", it is not immediately clear to me what the connection between the two is. But overall it seems to be a good article. Some else should pass the final judgement.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 03:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm understanding your concerns. I can add more sources, but is it really necessary to provide redundant sources? Also, where prose is concerned. Your example was you don't get how sentences tie together. The very next sentence shows that. "In 1787, Allen founded the all-Black Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church after St. George's white members, increasingly uncomfortable with the large number of Blacks the charismatic Allen had attracted to the church, began relegating Black worshipers to the church balcony." Maybe I'm missing the point. CJ 15:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Passed. Alientraveller 12:45, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scope - African American churches?

It looks like this article is really about African-AMERICAN churches, not churches in Africa, for example. If that's the case, wouldn't it be a good idea to indicate this in the first sentence? Maybe if we said "...that minister to African-American communities" (instead of "Black communities), that would be clearer for non-U.S. readers. Make sense? Timotheos 03:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've reworded the opening sentence to clarify that it is talking about Black-Americans/African-Americans. CJ 10:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Which denomination is the biggest?

There seems to be some editing & reversion regarding which Black denomination is the largest in the U.S. Both NBC-USA and COGIC claim about 6 million members. Both denominations' statistics are approximations and are dated, so it's hard to determine which one is the "largest." Perhaps we should stick with "one of the largest Black denominations" wording for each of them, until a reliable, dispassionate source can be cited. Timotheos 19:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware that both claim to be the largest. But, the statistic is currently documented with an independent source. I'm looking for scientific stastical studies that are more reliable.CJ 20:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyediting notes

Hi CJ. In copyediting the History section, it's possible I may have unintentionally altered your intended meaning here and there. If you find any such instances, please revert them or fix them. What you have here is interesting and worthwhile and seems generally well-supported. The short section on Politics and social issues is perhaps an exception. It could be expanded, I think, and probably should be. Just from general knowledge of the world, I'm guessing that divisions must exist within the Black church about social issues and moral issues. Your single example of a moral issue, homosexuality, suggests that moral issues in the Black church are focused on sex. This implication is probably unintentional and stems from your use of only the one example. Have Black churches (and White churches, for that matter) decided that social issues such as racial discrimination, voting rights, and poverty are not moral issues? Finetooth 19:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

This article, or a portion of it, was copyedited by the League of Copyeditors in September 2007. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
  • Copyeditor(s): Finetooth 19:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Proofreader: Cricketgirl 13:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Depth of discussionn

The article could be improved by more depth in discussion of how enslaved Africans dealt with religious traditions, especially as there were markedly different conditions in different colonies in the 18th c. Blacks didn't establish their own churches only in reaction to white actions or racial discrimination. When they were freed, many wanted to withdraw and consolidate within their own communities, including establishing their own churches. I've just been reading about this, but now have to find out where. Also the black churches had a much stronger role in the Civil Rights Movement than is touched on here.--Parkwells 20:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed paragraph from intro

I've removed the following paragraph from the article's introduction, because it seemed tangential to the subject of the Black church:

Because of Christian churches' complicated relationship with slavery, when ministers in the South tried to use religion to keep slaves "in their places", some question whether African Americans should continue with Christianity. Many African-Americans are turning to spiritual systems and religions including Orisha, etc, which preceded the American religious movements.[1]

This may be true, but I don't think it's central enough to the subject to be included in the article's lede. A discussion of the criticisms of the black church from the likes of Malcolm X would, of course, be appropriate, as would a mention of the response of black liberation theology. Heck, W.E.B. Du Bois was critical of aspects of the Black church in The Souls of Black Folk, which I'd think was more relevant to the history of the Black church than a modern-day return to Orisha. (Honestly, I'd think that more African-Americans have turned to Islam than to Orisha in the past fifty years, although I have no data to support this hunch.) Anyway, saying that "some question whether African Americans should continue with Christianity" without giving any more context or noting the response of the Black church to this challenge is a violation of the NPOV policy. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] In America, how does a church be defined by race?

These churches appear to creating a self induce segregation, because of the preaching about issues only people with African heritage could understand