Full disclosure, I’m white, and live in the whitest state in the nation. The only church I’ve attended in the last 40 years is for weddings and funerals. For the most part I think they are a waste of time and effort. Don’t know any black people - there aren’t any in my immediate area.
The image that I’m seeing on TV whenever the two words “black churches” are used is a preacher, reverend or minister ranting, raving and basically foaming at the mouth who is inspiring the black congregation to scream, shout and roll around in the aisles shouting Amen at the top of their lungs. Lots of mass hysteria being induced.
I assume this is some type of stereotype but I keep seeing the same image on the news no matter what network I’m watching.
Obviously the question is triggered by the current Obama minister flap but the video presentation or image I’m referring to is a common one over the last 10 or 20 years.
Is that what the average black church experience is really like?
BET has a 3 hour block of black church broadcasts from 6-9 on Sunday mornings. Obama’s church is included.
I’ve been to a couple. They’re actually somewhat similar to white megachurch non-liturgical churches. The pastor is usually dressed in a coat and tie, rather than liturgical vestments.
They’re usually a word of welcome and people greet each other. Then some gospel music lead by a choir. The congregation may join in with singing or clap their hands.
Then, there is a prayer time. The pastor will usually read a list of people needing prayer. If the church is small enough, the pastor might move into to the congregagation and might even stand by the person needing prayer.
The sermon is the bulk of the service. They tend to be long, a half hour at least. The congregation will talk back with “Amen” or “Thank you Jesus” “That’s right.” Many of the pastors do tend to be quite animated. One difference between theses services and liturgical services is that the pastor will tend to have a particular message but will pick his own Bible verses to support the message of the sermon. In a liturgical church, the Bible verses read are from the lectionary and the message is then related to the assigned verses for that day.
Next, there is usually announcements which tend to be a lot longer than you might expect. Lots of community annoucements as well as church activities. Then another song or two and it is on to brunch!
At the black churches I’ve attended, the coffee and gossip hour is non existent.
Here is a site that has reviews of various church services. Here is one of their reviews of a Black church.
Just wanna add that this isn’t necessarily a “black church” thing–plenty of “white” American Protestant Evangelical churches such as Baptist, etc., do it the same way, where the pastor picks his topic and then brings in Bible verses to match.
I’ve been to a few “black church” services in my time, and the two words I’d pick to describe the difference between them and the services at the mainstream American Protestant Evangelical churches I’ve attended all my life are “loud” and “extroverted” by white-bread standards. During the musical numbers, they tend to have the volume cranked up to 11.
And as noted, there’s a lot of response to the pastor while he’s speaking; the Amen Corner is alive and well.
A “black church” is one predominantly attended by black people, usually dating from the days when there was segregation, de fact of not de jure, among congregations.
The behavior Dale mentions is pretty much a stereotype – but remember that stereotypes are founded on generalizations of real traits. I could take you to a number of churches around here, both black and white, but more heavily black, that match Dale’s account – and also a few black churches that are nothing like that. (St. Ambrose Episcopal in Raleigh, at leat one of the local AME Zion congregations, a few others, find that style of worship as outre as you or I).
On the other hand, the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, Bishop of North Carolina (Episcopal), is an erudite and scholarly man and a rock-solid administrator, but when he preaches, it’s an experience! He sounds like he’s channeling an old revival evangelist and Paul Tillich at the same time!
As a middle-aged white guy who grew up in a world of mainstream churches, I have to say that the African-American evangelical church experience is absolutely a cultural shock.
There’s singing, arm waving, shout-backs during the sermon (often even during the prayers) and, as one black woman I know described it, “a joyful noise.”
Often the congregation puts a lot of emphasis on the minister’s ability to preach a sermon. This leads to a lot of what used to be called “stem winders” – florid oratorical bursts that generally died out in white society after World War 2.
As Duck Duck Goose notes, it’s not strictly a black thing. There are a lot of white Pentecostal churches that can outsing, outshout and outpraise their black counterparts.
One thing I’m not surprised by is the mixing of politics into the sermons. A good preacher will mix everything into a sermon.
I would add that I grew up in a black church that was nothing like the stereotype. As others have pointed out, the stereotype has more to do with the evangelical nature of the congregation than their race.
I was raised as a Catholic, and my church was very much a “black church” in the sense that the congregation, with the exception of one family, was entirely black and the church was located within the borders of South Central LA. However, outside of the gospel band, which wasn’t even present during all services, things were extremely laid back. No jumping, shouting, waving or fainting ever occurred while I was there. The "Amen"s might have been a little louder than at other churches, but I can’t swear to it.
My father was a Baptist deacon, and I also attended his church on rare occasions. Very similar to the experience I had at the Catholic church.
I had occasion to attend church once at West Angeles Church in South Central, where the local black celebrities go. It is definitely the megachurch screaming/shouting/fainting variety, and it scared me to death as a kid. I haven’t gone near it since.
So are pastors like Jeremiah Wright, with his loonytoons stuff about AIDS as a white man’s conspiracy, Europeans stealing everything they know from Africans, etc, a minority among black ministers?
I’d hate to think this stuff was mainstream African-American church teaching.
As an aside, in my church denomination, in our overall hierarchy of churches there is still a separate black leadership hierarchy that parallels the white hierarchy. I was told that this is a throwback to the days when they feared that in a single organization a black pastor might not have the same advancement opportunities as a white one due to segregation and prejudice. It is really odd to see this division present, but inertia keeps these two organizations separate.
A half hour is long for a sermon? I have always considered the sweet spot to be 40 minutes: 30 minutes is usually too short to get into anything interesting, and if it’s an hour, you had better be really good, otherwise everyone will nod off.
Exactly. When I lived in South (Central) Los Angeles, I occasionally would stop by a Protestant church on Sunday morning, just to see what they were like (as opposed to the Catholic church I grew up in). Half were Black, half were Latino. But only if they were evangelicals would the congregation be really noisy. The Latinos tend more to singing. (With tambourines, for some reason.)
Now I live near both a Catholic and an Episcopal church. The Episcopal church is probably the most boring. But it’s well-kept.
FTR, I’m not a very good Catholic. It’s just that churches are places where you can always go in and everyone will welcome you in a very friendly way. So I figure, “Let’s see how people spend their Sunday morning.” I’m more of an amateur anthropologist, and I go in as a linguist to see how people use language in that particular setting.
In the church I grew up in, service started at 10AM, sermon began at 10:30AM, sermon ended at 10:55AM, service ended at 11AM. We jokingly referred to the importance of “beating the baptists” i.e. to all the restaurants after church. I think we were joking.
Anyway, if the preacher went over 25 minutes, it was a serious breach of trust.
Heh, we said that too. You usually did, because they sing all the verses of “Just As I Am”.
As others have said - black churches are all over the map, but hereabouts they tend not to be denominationally affiliated in my experience and they do tend to include a lot more of people getting “slain in the spirit” and such. Just last week, the two middle aged black ladies I work with, one of whom I did NOT expect to be into that sort of thing, had this long and drawn-out conversation about how people fall over in their church. Evidently it’s the done thing to wear a shawl up there with you to do it so you can nicely put it over your face once you’ve done it.
Additionally, the black services that I have gone to at several “black churches” have been loooong. You ain’t never going to beat the Baptists to IHOP if you keep yelling back at the preacher, guys.
I was going to come in to tell the OP to just go to one - they do let you in, you know. Then I saw the location field, remembered Maine was the only place I’ve ever been where the hotel maids are English speaking white women, and tabled the suggestion.
I once went to a church that was half black, half white. I looked over and one member of the congregation was taking out a tambourine. Sure enough, the “Praise Jay-sus” participation thing wasn’t far behind. I thought they called it “charismatic.” OTOH I work with a black woman who is Catholic. I’ve also been to Catholic services and doubt there’s a lot of that fervent participation.
I went to a black church once when I was around 12. (I can’t exactly remember what led to me being there, but my dad and my mom and I went.) My first thought was, “I’m fucking jealous of these guys.” I was raised Jewish and we went to synagogue and our rabbi was (and still is) the most uncharismatic, droning, boring speaker ever. I spent pretty much all of my time in synagogue sleeping or fantasizing about the Japanese chick from Karate Kid Part II.
At the black church everyone was screaming and singing and there was a band and choir and everything. Everyone was having such a good time. There were a bunch of white people there so I assume that whites were accepted into the congregation, but it was mostly black.
Two major sermon themes are personal salvation and social justice (I call them “Be Good and Do Good”.) Any good preacher has a full assortment of both types of sermons in his repertory – and from everything I’ve heard, Pastor Wright was a heck of a preacher. I doubt if the looneytoons stuff was any more prevalent in his work than it is if you took a poll among all the junior political science instructors in the educational system.
You ruined my opportunity to be a wiseass, Cluricaun.
I came in to say “Black Churches? Well, James Brown is the pastor, and people fly around on trampolines.”
“Charismatic” is the acknowledged code word for “Pentecostal”, “holy roller”, “being slain in the spirit” speaking in tongues, etc. Assembly of God mainly, although there is a charismatic Catholic movement, so it’s not solely a Protestant thing.
And yeah, they tend to be about half and half, neither quote-unquote “black” or “white”.
