Black Youth and The Church
By M. Todd Manuel
Ink Spot Contributing Writer
My earliest memories of church were with my grandmother and my cousins, at Southern Heights Baptist Church, on Anthony & Rudisill here in Fort Wayne, IN. Sunday after Sunday my grandmother took me where she felt I needed to be: to church to learn about Jesus Christ. It is something that I am forever grateful for today, but I often wonder if she was aware that I was learning so much more than just who God was, I also learned who my community was. I am confident that my experience resonates with many of you today. Having a church family, away from my nuclear family, is something that I am learning to appreciate and respect as I get older. Sharing the same values, my church was the community of people who shared the love and support for one another, that I couldn’t get at school or any other place of social interaction. We still share this love today.
What was missing most Sundays was my mother and father. They, like many educated blacks in our community, were private-schooled, college-educated professionals who were sure to never to miss an Easter, Christmas, or baptismal program, but they just didn’t participate in weekly services. In fact, most of the parents of the children my age attended church with grandparents, or other relatives, but not their own parents. Now there was definitely a small handful of the children whose parents did attend weekly, but the vast majority of children attended church with an older generation.
What I am describing here is an increasingly apparent trend among all predominant American religions over the past several decades: the church’s loss of the younger generation. According to the American Journal of Sociology, every generation has attended church at a dramatically lower rate than the preceding one (Lawton, 2021). Undeniably, each generation’s challenges are different; this is not to say that this trend is good or bad. However, in light of what the black church has been to black people, it becomes clear that this decline has eroded a sociopolitical glue that held parts of who we are together.
Again, I want to be clear, this is not to say that you need to or even should attend church activities. In fact, many blacks have been successful as members of other social groups or practices, without the black church’s direct influence. What I am saying is that it is undeniable that, for us, it was and has not ever been just church to begin with. Church for the black community has been a fundamental part of our survival. Unlike white churches, the traditional black church is the oldest, and was oftentimes the only organizational body to hold the collective political and economic interests of our community, post-slavery (Gates, 2021). It must also be noted that the church cannot only be described by its Christian affiliation, but also Muslim and other religious affiliations as well.
Since the times of slavery blacks have preserved parts of our identity through a creative infusion of the rich African culture with religious practices. During and after slavery, we learned to cherish the fellowship and untethered social interaction that a great Sunday morning gathering provided. It should be of no surprise that after slavery’s abolition blacks protected these church activities as a vital connective tissue. Through the back and forth of America’s tussle with granting blacks their inalienable human and civil rights, the black church has been steady, reliable, and persistent. Out of the church came significant parts of black education, advocacy, and leadership. Many of the most notable leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X were leaders in the black community, while also being pioneers of mainstream black religious thought.
Whether it was Martin Luther King Jr. speaking for the rights of blacks supported by Christian theology, Malcolm X speaking for blacks based in Muslim theology, or Marcus Garvey by way of the African Orthodox Church, their delivery method was the same. These leaders created successful socio political movements by firmly planting themselves within the black church (Gates, 2021). The current problem with the church's decreasing influence is that it housed a significant portion of our shared interests and was one of few places where blacks could be blacks. Moreover, the problem that the current trend presents is that while blacks are becoming increasingly disaffiliated with the church, the trend is also creating a sociopolitical vacuum in the black community where about our identity is being lost.
Going into this vacuum is many different and fragmented interests. This is not to say that blacks need to be a monolith, but rather that we have an undeniable shared common interest, that reflects our collective experience in America today. The result is a breakdown of the social fabric and commonalities that we once held on to, in effort of preserving our socio political strength. The American Survey Center notes that, although Blacks have maintained more adherence to traditional activities (such as family prayer), we remain segmented across boundaries of sex and gender. The black community has the largest gap between men and women who attend church, and men are half as likely as women to attend bible study or church activities at all (Cox, 2022). This difference reveals a more intense social rift in our community in contrast to others because of the church’s foundational anchors.
Perhaps the clearest representation of this are the three most recent presidential elections. According to NBC News, black support of democratic leaders has varied amongst men and women. Men have increasingly become more conservative, while women have consistently voted democratic (NBC, 2020). This is another reminder that we are not a monolith, but it may also indicate that our circles of social affiliation are simply not the same.
What we know is that our community, like any other, is stronger when we join together. Although we won't ever be in complete agreement, our fragmented interests are likely a result of the vacuum that has been created as our people have disassociated themselves from religion and church. We seem to have forgotten that the black church is part of who we are. Can we appreciate the church for its collectivities, without having to be affiliated with its “religiosities”? I believe we can, and that we should. Can our music plug the vacuum’s hole in an effort to regain the suction necessary to clean America's racial mess? These are all great questions and would benefit every member of our community to consider.