Content provided in partnership with
Africentric church: a visit to Chicago's Trinity UCC
Christian Century, May 29, 2007 by Jason Byassee
It was in this climate of radical black activism that Wright set out to show what a church steeped in Christianity's long-neglected Africanity could look like. It took courage, Speller points out, for a black pastor to work "without apology" in a white denomination that seemed hopelessly corrupt to black nationalists. The militants didn't understand "the radicality of genuine Christianity," observes James Cone, a theologian at Union Theological Seminary in New York and a longtime colleague of Wright's, who made a similar triangulating move.
WHEN WRIGHT ARRIVED at Trinity in 1971 he helped the congregation ask, "Are we going to be a black church in the black community.., or are we going to continue to be a white church in blackface?" Wright introduced revival hymns like "Nothing but the Blood" and "What a Fellowship." Then he added an altar call to the service. Drums, tambourines and even a washboard became part of the music. A youth choir asked permission to sing gospel music, and on its first Sunday the group "came in 'stepping' like members of an Omega Psi Phi [a traditional black fraternity] step show" and wearing red and green dashikis. Adults then started asking if they could join the youth choir. Today nothing announces the church's commitment to unapologetic black Christianity more than its huge choir, which sways and sings in African dress, leading the hand-waving and the Amens.
These years also spawned the church's other motto: "In the heart of the community, ever seeking to win the community's heart." Trinity's location on Chicago's South Side is crucial to understanding its history and mission. Wright has written that it is hard to imagine a church like Trinity "taking place in Maine" (in Living Stones in the Household of God). In Trinity's neighborhood, children on their way home from elementary school are recruited by the Nation of Islam. The church sits just blocks from an enormous federal housing project built in the 1940s (home to a population that the original self-consciously middle-class congregation tried to overlook).
Trinity's rootedness in its neighborhood does not prevent it from having a global impact. Chicago's many seminaries regularly send students to intern at Trinity or just observe its ministry. Wright has sent dozens of students into ministry, many of them women. UCC youth groups from throughout Illinois travel to Trinity to learn about evangelism and racial justice. "They have a ball," Moss said of the wide-eyed white kids visiting Trinity most Sundays. "They say 'Is this a UCC church?'"
Moss sees Trinity's Africentrism as crucial to its success. "Churches that are, say, Lutheran first, but then just happen to be black secondarily don't grow. We're a black church first--one that just happens historically to be UCC." Moss is troubled when I remind him that Trinity is criticized as being "separatist." Trinity made a conscious decision to serve the community when whites were fleeing to the suburbs. "People who won't even come to the 'hood criticize us for being in the 'hood," he said. Understanding Trinity's social context helps one understand the church's critique of middleclassness. With increased access to prosperity and social status, blacks can imitate the white families who fled the area in the 1950s for the greener pastures of the suburbs.
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: Autos
Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »