THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH

The Creation

"And God stepped out on space and said, "I'm lonely. I'll make me a world. And everywhere that God could see blackness covered everything, blacker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp. Then God spoke and the light broke and the darkness stood on one side and the light stood shining on the other. And God said That's good."
These opening lines from the African-American poet, James Weldon Johnson's, "The Creation," remind me of the plight and progress of the Black church in America. Starting in darkness by its members shared experience and what is referred to by Robert Franklin as "spiritual defiance," the African-American religious experience has been both the safest place on earth as well as an incubator of social innovation creating the light of civil justice for the people. Franklin, President of Morehouse College and minister of an African-Methodist-Episcopal Congregation expresses both the character of and the challenges faced by African-American congregations for the early 21st century.

The Safest Place
"Black churches have always served as houses of refuge, of safety...and having this sense of a collective experience with the Holy."

"worship should engage all the senses...the 'rich cultural ecology' of black churches is one of America's great international exports to the world."

"a single voice articulates the woes...but everyone gathers...moves...moans...as a part of that prayer."

The artistry of the prophetic pulpit
"to employ language that is poetic and evocative, that reaches into people's imagination."


Creating light in the Community

"...when we look at American history. It (the Black church) is a kind of defiant response to institutional racism...You simply can't accept or accommodate the status quo when it is unjust."


On Martin Luther King's ascending into the civil right's message
"to speak to the sorrow and the aspirations of the people.. (from within him) another voice emerged."

Present Challenges


"the prosperity movement congregations."

"the need to reintroduce into society those who are released from incarceration."

"the need to mentor young African-American men by responsible black male role models."

Walter Morton for Terra Incognita