The Black Church: Three Views

FOR most of white America, the black church is an alien segment of the nation's culture, hidden behind the plain facades of large brick city churches, the rude clapboard of country chapels, the salvation-emblazoned windows of tattered store fronts. It is a montage of impressions, some real, some misleading: the low-moaning spirituals, the clapping and the shouted amens; the phenomenon of a Father Divine and the curious charisma once possessed by the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell; the prophetic, nation-shaking philosophy of a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the pragmatic, neighborhood-building politics of a Rev. Jesse Jackson.

There are almost 16 million black Christians in the U.S., and by far the majority find their faith and spiritual comfort in churches and denominations of their own making. Those churches were the first black institutions in the nation; they are still, by every measure, the largest. Today they reflect the struggle of U.S. blacks for their rightful place in society, and the leaders of those churches differ widely in the role they see for the black Christian in this struggle. But whether radical, conservative or moderately liberal, they generally agree that the black church holds a unique place in American society. Even the most radical churchmen will not agree with some of the disaffected black young, most of whom feel that the Christian churches have no more usefulness to the black man in America. Three views from the pulpit:

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