What you have written in no way typifies Black protestant churches. I have my doubts you even attend a Black church. You’ve cited a handful of ‘reverends’ who don’t even attend church, much less lead a congregation, and for whom the use of the title ‘reverend’ is used for nothing more than to lend credibility to their political agenda. They are all charlatans and in most cases, interested only in self enrichment.

I’m unsure you’re even a Black Christian, or even have a sense of who they are. There are thousands of Black churches, and ninety nine percent of them have no political agenda and are interested in only in spreading the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you would just pay attention to these churches, and if you are smart enough, you’ll recognize their unique and skillful way of worshiping is nothing but an inspired, but completely ignored art form.

On Sunday mornings if I’m working where I can, I listen to a couple of my favorites on the radio. To a first time listener, their rhetoric sounds repetitive, emotional and simplistic. Their congregations accent their repetitive enunciations with amens as a pianist contributes a couple of chords throughout. Halfway through the service you may have a feeling you’re wasting your time. But if you’ll pay attention until the conclusion, you’ll wind up with the feeling you’re the recipient of a powerful and pure spiritual message which words really can’t describe. It’s a spiritual matter, a very powerful and real spiritual matter, a completely and uniquely American spiritual matter, and one which goes quietly without the recognition it deserves. I would never personally attend one of these churches. They’re black churches. For me to be in audience would be like my making my contribution to the Mona Lisa with a magic marker.

The lives lived by the people who attend these churches are ignored also. I have the privilege of working with some. In the course of their days when presented with conundrums, often they cite biblical scriptures to justify their decisions. As far as piety is concerned, I feel the most pious of Black Christians are more pious than the most pious of white Christians. They are products of Black churches. These are the quiet, gentle, loving people you sully when you associate the Black church with the nastiness of political activism.

Spric,

You said:

"What you have written in no way typifies Black protestant churches. I have my doubts you even attend a Black church. You’ve cited a handful of ‘reverends’ who don’t even attend church, much less lead a congregation, and for whom the use of the title ‘reverend’ is used for nothing more than to lend credibility to their political agenda."

What evidence do you have of any of these allegations? Be specific, which one of the preachers that I mentioned don't have a church or attend church?

You also said:

"They are all charlatans and in most cases, interested only in self enrichment."

Whatever happen to the Biblical prescription of "Judge ye not?"

You went on to say:

"I’m unsure you’re even a Black Christian, or even have a sense of who they are. There are thousands of Black churches, and ninety nine percent of them have no political agenda and are interested in only in spreading the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. "

Are you sure of anything you've said, and have you been to ninety-nine percent of the Black churches? If not, how can you possibly know what you're talking about?

You say:

"It’s a spiritual matter, a very powerful and real spiritual matter, a completely and uniquely American spiritual matter..."

Do you really believe spirituality have national borders?

And this quote I love:

"I would never personally attend one of these churches. They’re black churches."

What was that, a "Freudian truth?" Based on the assured declarations of your previous statements, I would of thought that you were sitting up in "Black churches" every Sunday--you even pointed out who was in attendance.

And finally you say:

"These are the quiet, gentle, loving people you sully when you associate the Black church with the nastiness of political activism."

Are you implying that Martin Luther King "sullied" Black people by engaging in the "nastiness of political activism?

No, I can't quote you any statistics, or really qualify anything I said. It was all opinion. Just happens to an opinion I developed through my years of experience. Just like what you wrote was likely opinion which was a product of your experience.

Well done, Eric. Rec'd.

I would only add that the activism in the black church stretches back to the days of slavery. On Sundays, slaves would gather, ostensibly to worship. However, those gatherings were really the only places where they could speak their minds without fear of retribution.

After the Civil War, the black church became a staple in the bigger Northern cities. Even in the South, where religious persecution of blacks extended well past the days of Reconstruction, black churches were built up (and, in the case of a place like Ebenezer in Atlanta, grew to be icons).

So, the tradition of activist black preachers goes several generations behind Rev. Lowery, even. The pulpit, in many ways, offered them the megaphone they couldn't directly get in the papers - or later, on the radio or TV.

It did me good to see Lowery at the inaugural, and even though I'm sure I wouldn't have spoken that particular line about whites in the prayer, he has a special perspective, earned from 88 years spent fighting for racial equality in America, that gives him the privilege to utter it.

Going into the ministry was also a route for blacks to get an education. So it served literacy as well. Sometimes whites were willing to pay for that kind of education, when other types were denied.

And then I'm thinking of the tradition of oratory, preaching oratory, in black churches. I think there is a kind of oratory that we whites have, for the most part lost. And sometimes I wonder if one of the influences for Obama's great oratorical skills comes from that tradition. How could he not drink that up, along with everything else that fed into his language patterns and skills as an orator?

I think there's a passion in churches that serve the downtrodden that unites and uplifts as well. It was a place people could "let loose," "be free" - if only for a while. But that communal experience is so powerful in giving people inner strength to carry on.

And I'm thinking of how the African style of singing, the call and response, the cadences, the wonderful harmonizing, adds to the worship experience.

I know you've written a lot already. But these are some thoughts that came to my mind.

I'm gonna be honest and say there are aspects of the black experience that I envy - greatly!

TheraP,

We're thinking along the exact same lines. Here's an exchange that I had with a reader who felt that race should stop being used as a descriptive element in news stories:

“Dear Reporter & Editors:

Watching and reading descriptions of today's inauguration, mindful of the new President's dedication to the betterment of 'all Americans', resolute in our desire to assist in that goal, today we demand you foreswear the use of color to describe human beings.”

While I fully understand your sentiment, isn't the fact that President Obama the first Black leader of the free world news? In addition, I don't think our goal should be to do away with difference, but rather, to embrace and promote it.

The primary characteristic that makes the United States different from virtually every other country in the world is that we are a quilt as oppose to blanket, and that very patchwork of varying cultures is what makes us more, rather than less. Therefore, one of the greatest gifts that America can contribute to the world is the understanding that "difference" is a good thing rather than the reverse.

It is a given that all people have identical intellectual potential, but to confuse that with thinking that different cultures don't have differing culturally developed skills to bring to the table is a fallacy. To say that Black tend to have "soul" is a fact. But that isn't the same thing as saying that soul is innate to Black people and not others. The reason that Black people tend to have soul, and a highly developed sense of creativity, is because that's an area that has been culturally rewarded in the Black community, due to the limitations that's been placed on Black people in other endeavors.

But as Barack Obama is clearly demonstrating, creativity is an associative quality, and it's not limited only to music. The very same creative that goes into the making of a Ray Charles, Areatha Franklin, or John Coltrane, can easily be transferred to finding a cure for cancer, or indeed, leading the free world.

Thus, just as President Obama is demonstrating that the Black experience has contributed to unique qualities in Black people that can benefit the world, the very same thing is true of Hispanics, Asians, Jews, Native Americans, and every other cultural group. So why would we want to downplay the BEAUTY and unique qualities of cultural differences?

Eric L. Wattree