African American Christians have had their own churches since the 18th century. Houston’s original Black church, Saint Luke the Evangelist Episcopal Church (previously Saint Clements’) has been an institution in the Third Ward for over one hundred years. For many of us the church has been more than a religious home, it’s been our community, where we grieve and celebrate together, sing, and study, and challenge the dominant culture of white supremacy. During the Civil Rights movement we gathered at church to demand our rights, to be encouraged, af-fi rmed and transformed. The Black Church’s inspiration is part of every phase of the African American experience. It continues to invigorate Black identity today.
But today’s African American churches remain scarred by a secular world that is still stubbornly resistant to the idea of black citizenship, let alone black humanity. Its audacious declaration that Black worshippers are necessary to liberate the soul of an unrepentantly racist nation is going unheard and ignored by our youth.
Despite Blacks being the most religious ethnic group in the United States, we, like all Americans, are increasingly moving away from organized religion. Especially young Black adults are less devout and engaged in church than their elders. And young Black adults who attend religious services are less likely to do so at a Black church than are their parents or grandparents. Some of our children overtly distrust Black Christianity. They complain about the pretense, the judgmental attitudes some of their pastors.
They suspect the Black church of colluding with the patriarchy and the trans-and-queer antagonism, especially rejecting those congregations that don’t embrace social justice efforts. According to the Pew Research Center almost half of millennials and 46 per cent of GenZers “rarely or never” participate in church activities. Much of this separation begins in college or early adulthood. Sixty-six percent who were faithful worshippers as teens suspended or ceased church participation in college. The competing pressures of time, pressing expenses, new friends, the exposure to new religious traditions, and the lack of activism leave Black students less involved in church. Th ey say they feel unheard and unable to change historical cultures. Some say it has been diffi cult fi nding a new church family away from home. Still, Black twenty-and thirty-somethings are not irredeemably anti-church.
We love our Black church predecessors, especially those who have persevered for decades with the spirit of hard work, faith, and courage. But intergenerational inclusion is vital to the Black church’s relevance. To reverse this susceptibility of separation the senior members must compassionately hear and prayerfully consider young people’s concerns about the meaning of faith and its role in their world. We must humble ourselves to accept their feelings of what matters to them (authenticity, challenge, space for questions and doubts, agency, community service) and why today’s church does not appeal to them. The Black church is strong, but it must also be resilient. And it must recognize that its future will be youth-led.
