Black Crisis

There is something tragically askew in the religious state of black Americans; namely, the near-failure of qualitative development in integrated and/or separate black middle-class churches and denominations.

That same near-failure is of course evident in every mainstream Protestant denomination, black or white, whether the criteria be lack of growth or loss of adult membership, youth participation, trained clergy, theologically alert laity, or commitment to black ecumenism. But nowhere is this reality more poignant than among black United Methodists. Not only did they shrink by 140,000 between 1940 and 1964, but their attrition from an estimated 385,000 since the 1968 decree of "no more segregated jurisdictions" has paralleled the demise of the segregated Central Jurisdiction.

A Disquieting Inertia

Since there is no significant countervailing evidence in any integrated and/or middle-class denomination, the lack of qualitative development is the issue of moment -- one that can no longer be avoided without fatal consequences for the healthy growth of black church life.

It is a multifaceted issue laced with serious questions. Is the distinctive religion of black Americans culture-bound? Is it limited to the lower class and therefore alien to the middle class? Is it inherently racial and consequently inimical to integration or to functional interaction between self-accepting and other-regarding ethnics?

That dynamism is not the dominant pattern in middle-class black churches is a virtually undisputed fact, empirically verifiable by any unbiased investigator in most communities where middle-class blacks practice religion. It is precisely because of its pervasiveness that this inertia is so disquieting.

Owing largely to the controversy over more exciting debaters' points (i.e., What is black religion, black theology, the black church? What is uniquely black in religion or theology or the church?), this alarming situation has been allowed quietly to fester. But, however important and interesting such discussions may prove to be -- and after all, black Christian life can be interpreted in a variety of ways of which none excludes the others -- they amount to little more than whistling in the dark apart from a vibrant community of participants. What is important is that the issue of lack of quality and quantity in middle-class black religious life be rightly understood and addressed. Dealt with in those terms, it is an issue of relevance to white and black churches alike.

Black Students: In Retreat from Religion

It may be that as chairman of Afro-American studies and professor of religious studies here at the University of Virginia, and as lecturer in both fields on some 100 U.S. campuses, I have been made more acutely aware than most of my fellow religionists to what must be called a crisis in the black religious spirit. In any case, in the past three years I have witnessed the emergence of a strange phenomenon. Whether in the classrooms on this campus or the lecture halls of other colleges, I have found that surprising numbers of white students (who are nothing if not middle class) are deeply interested in the study and application of religion.

The University of Virginia is but one of many institutions whose courses in religion are attracting hundreds. For example, in 1968 the faculty of the University of Virginia's religious studies department consisted of two full-time members; in 1974 there are 14. Concomitantly, the number of students majoring in religion has mushroomed from a handful to over 200. However, only two of these are black. At the University of Virginia as at other universities, mainline religion, while admittedly one of the black community's most important institutions, holds the least interest for black college students.

Indeed, almost everywhere black college students are for the most part compulsively antireligious. They do join gospel choirs and (like their white peers) take part in fundamentalist movements, but these involvements call for action, not for reflection. What is worse, even such superficial concerns appeal to fewer and fewer. The point at which the black students' retreat from religion will bottom out and start the upswing is not in sight.

The fact is that one would be hard put to find a strong, independent department of religion at any black college. Generally, religion is dealt with in the philosophy/religion department. This state of affairs speaks volumes about religion among middle-class black students, parents, alumni, professors and administrator.

Interesting as it would be to explore the reasons why middle-class black and white college students respond to religion in opposite ways, to do so would lead us too far from the issue at hand. Let me say only that the paucity of black students taking courses in religion means that, if and when they decide on a church commitment, they will find themselves at a great disadvantage. This sad situation may have anti-Black consequences. For the church, an institution of great influence and potential strength can be an instrument of community.

The erosion of middle-class church membership could be explained away as just another indication that blacks are no different from whites. But that would be to underestimate the crucial importance of religion in the black community, to shake off black religion and black theology, and to disregard the portent of antireligious black youth and pro-religious white youth.

Some argue that the black middle-class churches' loss of vitality is proof of the failure of integration. They imply that at best a marginal segment of the black religious population can be brought into the wider church community, and that for each black successfully integrated, ten or a dozen will be lost to nonintegrated churches or, more often, to all churches. This line of argument leads to the conclusion that the only institution capable of appealing to the black masses is the black church independent of white denominations.

Socialization Centers

This is an argument that may have merit, but it does violence to the facts. While the black denominations do enjoy a large membership, their churches for the most part are growing neither numerically nor theologically. Why? Because in truth they are middle-class churches. They generally do not reach the masses of working people and underprivileged families who comprise the vast majority of the black population. Hence their only recourse is to take the defensive by way of black ecumenism. This would be a justifiable tactic if it could become operational. But notwithstanding their rhetoric, black Baptists or Methodists -- who enjoy the largest following and are the most middle class of all black