Abstract
With the presentation of black churches within public life completed, this chapter assesses the impact of these activities. While, from the start, the presence of black churches within the public arena has been acknowledged, this chapter outlines the limitations and problems associated with this involvement. For example, the theological arrangements for these churches—including notions of cosmic authority—along with structural elements of their organizational frameworks hamper development of the proper posture toward public discourse.
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Notes
Quoted in Frederick Harris, Something Within: Religion in African-American Political Activism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 97.
Quoted in R. Drew Smith and Corwin Smidt, “System Confidence, Congregational Characteristics, and Black Church Civic Engagement,” in R. Drew Smith, editor. New Day Begun: African American Churches and Civic Culture in Post-Civil Rights America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 60, 62.
C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 201.
Mark Chaves, “Religious Congregations,” in Lester M. Salamon, editor. The State of Nonprofit America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), 293.
Gary Marx, Protest and Prejudice: A Study of Belief in the Black Community (New York: Harper and Row, 1967).
R. Drew Smith, “Introduction,” in R. Drew Smith, Long March Ahead: African American Churches and Public Policy in Post-Civil Rights America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 1.
Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of African Americans, 3rd edn (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998), 253.
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (New York: The New Press, 2011).
Charitable Choice involves governmental funding to religious organizations for the purpose of social services. For additional information see, for example, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/fbci/guidance/charitable.html. Also see R. Drew Smith, editor, New Day Begun: African American Churches and Civic Culture in Post-Civil Rights America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), Part III.
Omar M. McRoberts, “Black Churches, Community and Development,” National Housing Institute, ShelterForce Online (January/February 2001), 3. At: http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/115/McRoberts.html
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© 2013 Anthony B. Pinn
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Pinn, A.B. (2013). The Black Church’s Public Profile—An Assessment. In: What Has the Black Church to Do with Public Life?. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137376954_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137376954_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47924-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-37695-4
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