A New Black/White Religious Mix
by: Dave Belden on September 13th, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Carlton Pearson
As a Unitarian Universalist (UU) who loves to go to Christian services in the black gospel tradition–for their emotional depth and warmth, even though I am pretty allergic to Christian theology–it was a delight to read this article about the largest UU congregation in the country teaming up with a black (universalist Christian) congregation.
First, who would believe that the largest UU congregation–in a religion that is so identified in people’s minds with its New England origins–would be in Tulsa, Oklahoma? Maybe they need it more and know they do, while New England itself is going increasingly post-religion altogether.
Second, just contemplate the courage of the Rev. Carlton Pearson. This man was a rising star in the evangelical world, charismatic, successful on the ground (he built the Tulsa church he founded to 0ver 6,000 members) and on TV, making a lot of money and garnering adulation. Then, watching the Rwandan genocide on TV, his life was changed.
His assumption was that the victims were bound for hell, persecuted yet unsaved. Feeling angry at God, and guilty that he himself wasn’t doing anything about it, he recalls, he fell into a sort of reproachful prayer: “God, I don’t know how you can sit on your throne there in heaven and let those poor people drop to the ground hungry, heartbroken, and lost, and just randomly suck them into hell.”
He heard God answer, “We’re not sucking those dear people into hell. Can’t you see they’re already there – in the hell you have created for them and continue to create for yourselves and others all over the planet? We redeemed and reconciled all of humanity at Calvary.”
Pearson had the courage to preach the gospel of God’s universal love for everyone. He was expelled from his church and lost his congregation, his TV spot, his income. Well, not his entire congregation. About 200 stayed with him, attending services he held in a sympathetic church. Now, thanks to the openmindedness of the young UU minister in Tulsa, Pearson and the 200 have joined the Universalists whom he used to despise.
The UU Tulsa church now holds two services every Sunday, one in the traditional UU cultural style, one in the cultural style Pearson and his group brought with them: same sermon and readings, very different music and emotional tone. And it’s no surprise to me that a lot of the white folks prefer the black cultural style.
It has been obvious to many UUs like myself for a long time that that would be so, but the difficulty of how you make the shift has proved to be huge. Having white people sing gospel and shout Amen from the pews in the hope of attracting more African Americans to the service and in order to have a more joyful and participatory experience themselves just doesn’t ever quite work, at least that I know of. This merging of two churches: now, I can see that that could work and I wish every good thing for this congregation that they can actually make it happen long term. Goodness knows what interpersonal work they will have to do to cope with residual and unconscious racism, but if they are joining in joyful worship together, that is so much more likely to work than if they just have deep soul-searching in an atmosphere of “we have failed so far, what can we do now?”
Dave, I, too, rejoiced for the Tulsa UUs when I read this article!! And I have to admit that I’m jealous of them. I would love to have an emotionally warm and responsive service to attend that didn’t batter my theological sensibilities! How wonderful for the UU movement!!
Dave, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I, too, enjoy the emotional feelings gained when singing or hearing the “black spiritual songs,” (our soul songs)
Segregation on Sunday morning while worshipping the same God has always been offensive to me. Rev. Carlton Pearson’s style and message of inclusion should be available and shared by all. In my quest for spiritual diversity and inclusion I have attended services in churches of the black cultural style. There the raw spirituality and emotion always deeply touches my heart and soul. It is not surprising to me that other white people are attracted to it as well.
Dave,
I appreciate your enthusiasm for the blending of the two churches. As a UU adherent, I find myself more marginalized. I am a female of color, a retired educator who grew up in the Presbyterian Church USA. I never accepted Christianity as it was taught from the Bible. I returned to the church as an adult to fulfill a principle of not depriving my three children of access to all aspects of their heritage, ethnic, spiritual, academic and creative. Due to their own innate questoning and non-interferring parents, each chose not to continue the Christian tradition. All are caring, concerned, informed adults in a larger world that seems to be turning more to external spiritual identification.
My interpretation of the Reverend Pearson’s transformation, which he attributes to his “known” God,” may perhaps reflect his experience as a black man in a religious-dogma world who awakened to his inner spirit. Of course, I am not sure; what I do think is that as the community identifies with something called “the black church,” as if those who are of other religious” heritages, i.e., Episcopal, Presbyterian, etc., have no “black experience.” I wonder for the spiritual independence of my grandchildren. Will they be forced back into the limitations of dogma and style? Freedom of spirit from bodily limitations is healthy, but its integration into the Christian–any–religious tradition and culture may not be as freeing as it seems. When I look into the pre-Christian history of Europeans, they were very active–i.e.physically and emotionally. I also sing spirituals, just not gospel. My ha-penny.
Gwendoline, this is such a great response. Yes, I agree entirely about not wanting future generations to be limited by the cultural styles of the past and present. That’s one reason I like to see different cultural styles truly engage and merge and create new things: that kind of syncretism and creativity is what created modern music out of European and African cultures, and increasingly world cultures. The world is changing very rapidly and it’s hard to invent religion that nourishes us emotionally and intellectually. There is no one-size-fits-all.
I myself tend to see religious cultural style quite as much in terms of class as race. Middle class white people like me only think of what Donna, in the comment above, called the “raw spirituality and emotion” in black services as “black” because we haven’t experienced it elsewhere. But there is plenty of it in Pentecostal churches of all ethnicities, and in the history of Methodism and all forms of revivalism in the white churches. The Shakers and Quakers were both named for the ecstatic physicality of their worship. The history of how all these denominations became more physically and emotionally restrained as their congregants became more middle class is fascinating.
Why physical and emotional restraint has historically gone with being middle class is a great topic for enquiry, and a good deal has been written on it. Neil Postman in “The Disappearance of Childhood” says it is related to the unnatural degree of bodily control and stillness that kids have to learn to become avid readers and highly educated, whether to be clerks or professionals. Barbara Ehrenreich in “Fear of Falling” points out that the modern middle classes have been trying to loosen up, through everything from rock music and pot to aerobics and sex manuals. I see the UUs’ desire for more spirituality, which has led them to integrate aspects of pagan and Buddhist practice into worship, and now to bring in more gospel music and so on, as related to that trend. Middle class emotional restraint just went too far by the 1950s and we have been trying to learn a better balance ever since.
Dave,
I am aware of the restraints of the middle-class child rearing, in person, and from Postman. Your mention of it reminds me of conversations I over heard during childhood–one from a “talented tenth” family, that “What white people don’t understand is that we have classes, too.” The nexus of class is, of course, more influential than that of ethnicity, but “color” is easily seen and used to dismiss thinking. Google my name and read the opening of my first novel at amazon.com. You might like the “history as fiction” that I write. I promise you that it is authentic, with a twist. There are two with a third out, soon.
Thank you for understanding. I often fear posting to some sites (and do not) because of the lack of understanding my ideas provokes.
That point that ‘”color” is easily seen and used to dismiss thinking’ is profound. The same kinds of middle class things that have happened to white people as they traverse from working to middle to upper middle class happen to people of any other ethnicity, though always with the flavors of each people’s own cultural backgrounds, and with differing insults directed at them from the middle classes already established. This latter is what John Kenneth White and I were talking about in the posts I did about him recently: that “white people” today were once as much divided into insiders and outsiders (Anglos on top, having contempt for Irish, Italians, E. European Jews etc.) as whites vs various peoples of color in our day (http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/09/11/how-us-and-them-will-become-us/). I recall a good deal of stuff on “the culture of poverty” but haven’t read so much on “the culture of becoming middle class” with different ethnic examples being portrayed. I am excited to hear about your novels and will go to the library asap and find them.
[...] their emotional depth and warmth, even though I am pretty allergic to Christian theology-it was a delight to read this article about the largest UU congregation in the country teaming up with a black (universalist Christian) [...]