WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2006 by Smith, Vern E

The popularity of mega-churches, many preaching a prosperity gospel, has created a schism among religious leaders over the direction of the Black church

When Roddric Bell was growing up in Greenville, Miss., in the 1970s and 1980s, the Baptist church he attended was a small neighborhood church that most of the 100 or so members walked to on Sunday.

Now Bell, 35, a crop insurance specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his wife Madra, 32, a human resources specialist with the Veterans Affairs Department, attend Word of Faith Christian Center, a sprawling 4,500-member mega-church in Jackson, Miss., that is at the cutting edge of a new outlook on worship in Black religious life.

"For awhile people stopped going to church," says Bell. "You can't just holler at us anymore. You've got to have something that's going to help me or be learned. If I'm not learning, I'm not coming here." The Bells are not alone.

"For some reason, African American Christians have been disproportionately attracted to mega-church congregations," observes Lawrence Mamiya, a professor of religion and Africana studies at Vassar College. He adds that it is unclear whether the primary attraction is the size of the congregation, the pastor's charisma, the music or some combination thereof.

The Bells' church is a satellite of the 21,000-member Word of Faith International Christian Center Church, which is based in Southfield, Mien. It was founded by Bishop Keith Butler, a former Detroit City Council member who is running as a conservative Republican for the U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

"Word of Faith" is not the only movement involved in the growth of Black mega-churches, but many of the best-known mega-church pastors have been influenced by the Faith movement begun by White evangelist Rev. Kenneth Hagin Sr. in 1934 and continued by his son, Rev. Kenneth Hagin Jr., pastor of the Rhema Bible Church in Tulsa, OkIa., according to Mamiya.

The popularity of "Word" Black mega-churches, many preaching a "prosperity gospel" with what Mamiya calls a "neo-Pentecostal fervor," has tapped into an apparent growing spiritual yearning among the Black middle and upper-middle class. It is a development that is profoundly affecting the habits of many Black Christians and has created a schism among Black church leaders over the direction of the Black church. The Black church was founded more than 200 years ago on a tradition of "liberation theology," which was notably embodied in the movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.

"There are two basic models of ministry that have developed," says Mamiya, co-author with the late C. Eric Lincoln of The Black Church in the African American Experience, "one emerging from the Civil Rights Movement - the Martin Luther King Model, you can say. The other model is the mega-church ministry model. Those in the King camp tend to see the prosperity model as being uncritical of American society and in a sense leaving the poor [behind] when there are so many unresolved problems with American society for African Americans."

A striking example of the intensity of the debate occurred in May, when Bishop Eddie L. Long, senior pastor of the 25,000-member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., and one of the best-known mega-church pastors, was chosen as commencement speaker at the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta.

Thirty-three graduating seniors fired off a six-page letter to ITC President Michael Battle "questioning Long's theological and ethical integrity to be their commencement speaker," the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

Professor James H. Cone of Union Theological Seminary in New York, a renowned Black church scholar who was scheduled to receive an honorary degree, boycotted the commencement in protest, as did Bishop John Hurst Adams of the AME church, a longtime ITC board member.

With the rhetoric flying, there were predictions that a walkout or some other protest could disrupt the ceremony held in the King International Chapel at Morehouse College, but the May 13 event passed without any demonstration.

Still, the fact that ITC, long considered a bastion of the traditional justice-based theological philosophy of King, had embraced an acolyte of the "new" Black church sent shock waves through supporters of the traditional church.

Long, along with Bishop T.D. Jakes of Dallas; Rev. Creflo Dollar of College Park, Ga.; Rev. Fred Price of Los Angeles; the Rev. Leroy Thompson of Darrow, La.; and, to some degree, Bishop Charles Blake of Los Angeles, are among the best known Black mega-church pastors influenced by the Hagins, either through their Bible Institute or television ministry, according to Mamiya.

"There is a real culture war," adds Robert M. Franklin, professor of religion at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta and a former ITC president. Franklin is referring not only to the struggle for theological and political primacy among Black preachers, but also the larger question of what Black Christians want to do with their collective might in 21st century America.