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The graying of the clergy extends to the faithful. Black churches usually operate a wide array of community projects reaching all age groups, but "many black churches are senior citizens' homes," laments Los Angeles pastor Murray. "They do not attract young adults and youths." High rates of joblessness and crime among young blacks are significant factors, but the Rev. Richard Norris of Philadelphia's Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church (founded in 1794) cites the drug crisis in particular: "It's destroyed the family. It's weakened the church." Baltimore attorney Leronia Josey blames some middle- class black Christians for getting too "comfortable." The church, she says, let others take charge of community welfare, and "in the process the drugs crept in and the girls got pregnant."
Black youths have often been attracted to Islam, with its strong image of male assertiveness, black pride and rigid discipline. In particular, Muslim organizations have far outdone Christians in evangelizing prison inmates and ex-convicts. The Lincoln-Mamiya study estimates, however, that the two major North American black Islamic groups have only 120,000 members, and some inner- city pastors claim that fascination with the religion is waning.
In contrast with male-oriented Islam, the active membership in the typical black Christian church today is 70% female. But there are few women ministers, and apparently that is the way laywomen want it. "Though congregations are run by women in support roles, those women say they want to see a man as an authority figure," says James Costen, president of Atlanta's Interdenominational Theological Center. The issue may generate more controversy as the clergy shortage grows. For now, ambitious women preachers are joining white denominations or establishing their own independent congregations.
One of the most successful woman preacher-entrepreneurs is Johnnie Colemon, 70, who started her Christ Universal Temple in 1956 with 35 members. Now Colemon operates Chicago's largest black church, boasting 10,000 followers who meet in a sprawling $10.5 million complex on the city's South Side. Colemon was ordained by the Unity School of Christianity, based in Unity Village, Mo., a New Thought group that she quit in 1974 because of what she charged was a racist tinge. Colemon preaches reincarnation (she believes she was once an Egyptian princess) and an unapologetic quest for material prosperity ("Money is God in action"). Practicing what she preaches, the pastor lives in a 23- room mansion.
Despite their problems, mainstream black Christian groups still exhibit plenty of vitality. Even struggling rural Southern churches, hard hit by northward migration, are doggedly holding on with the help of part-time pastors and energetic lay leaders. One hopeful sign in the North and the West is that blacks are no longer drifting into white churches when they move up the social scale. Says Atlanta's John Hurst Adams, senior bishop of the A.M.E. Church: "We are not buying the integration route. We never have and never will. We seek an inclusive society that need not be integrated but values diversity and respects it."