Religion: Strains On the Heart

U.S. black churches battle apathy and threats to their relevance but also revel in renewal

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Across the country, there is a discernible turn back to the church among educated, affluent blacks. As a young man, Baltimore civil engineer Larry Little, 41, forsook religion for radical politics. Years later, he felt isolated as the only black in his Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins and resumed churchgoing, currently at Baltimore's Bethel A.M.E. Church. Many other black urban professionals tell similar stories. Lincoln and Mamiya argue that the resurgence of interest underscores the vital need for better educated clergy.

) Los Angeles' First A.M.E. Church is one congregation that is squarely addressing the problem of lagging male presence. Church leaders have organized special monthly meetings for men, who leave the sanctuary midway through the morning service and gather by themselves. Apart from building male solidarity, the sessions are designed to enlist commitments to 25 church task forces, many of them aimed at troubled young men.

While traditional churches are struggling to maintain their relevance, Lincoln and Mamiya believe that, increasingly, American blacks will look to forms of Pentecostalism for their spiritual needs. By the 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.

A lively exemplar of the independent Charismatic movement is the 10,000- member Crenshaw Christian Center of Los Angeles, a church with no shortage of men under 40. Pastor Frederick Price preaches a much disputed "word of faith" message, which holds that God will supply anything that believers want, including health and wealth, when they truly believe. The television preacher describes his method as simply giving people "biblical information that they can apply and put into their daily lives. This is what people need, and this is what they want. They eat it up."

The nerve center of black Neo-Pentecostalism is Bethel A.M.E. Church in Baltimore, which presents an invigorating blend of rollicking music and old- time religion. The church had 500 members in 1974; today it boasts more than 7,000. The average age of members is 35, and nearly half are men. Bethel is proudly Afrocentric -- a bright mural of African faces is painted over the altar -- and has traded its pipe organ for a jazz band. Pastor Frank Reid, 39, holds degrees from Yale and Harvard Divinity School.

Reid's sermons are interspersed with traditional Pentecostal dancing and singing, while at one point in the Sunday service worshipers break up into cozy prayer circles. Bethel is an energetically activist congregation: last year it clothed and fed 18,000 people, and it operates programs for older people, teens, women, youths with school problems and adults who cannot read. Next on the agenda is a $10 million athletic center.

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