African American Religion: The Struggle for Community Development
in a Southern City
Said
Sewell/State University of West Georgia
There
is an important role for southern black faith communities
in the development of African-American communities. One has
only to examine the literature on the black Baptist churches
to comprehend that the Church has an extensive history in
responding to not only to the religious needs of these communities,
but to the educational, social, political, and economic concerns
inherent in African-American communities in South. Finally,
this study advanced that although black Baptist churches are
concerned with secular issues (e.g., community development),
they are not, in general, significantly or necessarily active
in the development of their communities.
As
such, in the year 2000, pastors in Atlanta were of the mindset
to conclude that black advocacy groups would be better able
to advance the needs of the black community than black Baptist
churches. This apparent disregard for secular activism stands
in sharp contrast to the historic context of black Baptist
churches, which, heretofore, has seen the Church as the liberating
champion of human rights, civil rights, and the attainment
of a quality of life comparable to that which exists beyond
the boundaries of our disenfranchised black communities.
Black
Churches and Neighborhood Development in Atlanta
The
purpose of this article is to address two primary questions
regarding black churches and the existence and/or level of
community participation: 1) Is there a role for black faith
communities in neighborhood development in the South? 2) Are
black faith communities in the South concerned with, and involved
in, the development of their communities?
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"The traditional perspective on black religion and the
Black Church has tended to focus on the inward, 'other-world,'
perspective."
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Research
among Black churches.
This research was a first effort in linking the role of black
churches to the issues of urbanization that have plagued black
communities since their inception. The method for collecting
data for this study was a forty-nine (49)-item questionnaire—a
closed-ended, forced response survey that was mailed to respondents.1
The questionnaire was sent to all seventy-nine (79) black
Baptist pastors in Atlanta who were affiliated with one of
the two black state Baptist conventions (the General Missionary
Baptist Convention of Georgia and the New Era State Convention
of Georgia). Fifty (50) pastors responded to the survey, resulting
in a 63% response rate. Black Baptist pastors were selected
to respond to the questionnaire because previous studies acknowledged
that it is the pastor’s vision and ideas that direct
the church’s action.2 The reason this research looks
at the Baptist denomination is that it is the only denomination
that is congregational, as opposed to episcopal, in church
structure, which means that all church-related decisions are
made at the local congregational level. In addition, while
there is a natural predisposition to assume that Atlanta’s
disadvantaged minority communities (e.g., high levels of unemployment,
single-parent households and low levels of educational attainment
and income) could benefit greatly from the community development
efforts of black churches, it is only through a rigorous examination
of the attitudes of a pool of local black Baptist preachers
that we can establish what is actually happening in this regard,
and what is not. The literature affirmed that a black pastor's
perceptions are often very reflective of his/her congregation's
views, and that it is his/her perceptions, for the most part,
that set the direction, or "vision," for the church
(Hamilton 1972 and Lincoln and Mamiya 1990).
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