Word: baptist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Throughout black history in the U.S., the church has been the central institution in the African-American community, a fact still true in a country with 65,000 black congregations. As Baptist Pastor J. Alfred Smithing Sr. of Oakland's Allen Temple Baptist Church puts it, "The black church is the heart of black life." Today, as never before, that heart is enduring strains and challenges brought on by apathy, social ills and new directions in the black religious experience. Urban congregations are surrounded by neighborhoods demoralized by spiraling drug use, crime and family disintegration; the churches face a looming...
...Black Church focuses on the seven largest black Protestant denominations in the country. The biggest U.S. black organization of any type is the 7.5 million-member National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. Like all Baptist groups, it gives individual congregations complete autonomy. The National Baptist Convention of America and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. are kindred groups. The oldest black denominations are the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, founded after the Revolutionary War by free blacks influenced by John Wesley's revival movement. The closely related Christian Methodist Episcopal Church was formed...
...reached a dangerously high 52, which means that fewer young blacks are entering the ministry. Thanks to the civil rights movement, the ministry is no longer the sole redoubt of blacks with leadership aspirations. "We never had black mayors before the last 30 years," remarks Harlem Baptist Pastor Wyatt Tee Walker...
...Only one- quarter of the black pastors in the U.S. have health insurance, a mere 15.7% receive pensions, and salaries are so low that nearly 40% of pastors hold second jobs. Less than one-fifth of pastors hold seminary degrees. The Rev. Calvin Butts, pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, believes lack of formal skills is critical. "You can be 'called,' but 9 times out of 10 today if you are not trained, you are of no use to us," says Butts, who holds a Ph.D. from Drew University in New Jersey...
...scholars' projections, Pentecostalism could claim half of black churchgoers sometime in the next century. The movement has three variants. There are the traditional Pentecostal denominations such as the Church of God in Christ. There are also independent Charismatic congregations, and Neo-Pentecostalists within the traditional Methodist and Baptist denominations...