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''The Negro Church'' is a book produced in 1933 by Benjamin Elijah Mays and Joseph William Nicholson. As a request from a group of black leaders, the book’s content involves the product of an “intensive study of 609 urban and 185 rural Negro churches widely distributed in twelve cities and four country areas” (Pratt 502). Being the first time the Negro church has ever been viewed through a “comprehensive contemporary study,” the basis of this strategic search was to understand and describe the universal statistics and meaning behind the aspects of a “Negro church” in the United States during that time period. This study was an equal product of two prominent black ministers and educators who believed in the power of the Negro church and its importance in black culture—being intrinsic to the soul. The Negro’s Church is broken down into seventeen chapters and three-hundred and twenty-one pages covering topics like: “The Church in Negro Life,” “The Message of the Minister,” and “The Genius of the Negro Church.” Both Mays and Nicholson reveal their investigation in careful depth, analyzing data with an organized, descriptive, and critical eye. The book highlights the origins of the Negro’s church and how in times of oppression, when blacks were being identified as less than human in the New world, they coped by using a religious or spiritual technique. The songs, hymns, and dances of the culture of the black church were their way to “endure suffering and survive as it helped blacks get through heartache with the music of the soil and the soul” (Mays, Nicholson 2). The Negro church, even before emancipation, was the reason blacks developed agency and their church became the one place where they had liberties, leadership, control, and freedom of self-expression. It’s ironic that besides teaching, “preaching and ministry” was one of the only other jobs acceptable and supported by some liberal whites as they viewed it as a non-threatening demonstration of the spirit of God. In retrospect, the Negro church played as a huge role in providing black culture with a voice on all levels: economically, socially, and politically. Chapter VI of The Negro’s Church titled “The Message of the Minister,” explains how the Negro church is not only responsible for the spiritual but it also was used as a source for educating its people. After doing a systematic study of 100 sermons in churches located in 12 cities included in the study, “stenographic reports” were recorded in order to evaluate the teaching quality by the minister in each Negro church. The authors separated the sermons into “three classes: those that touch on life situations, sermons that are doctrinal or theological, and those that are predominantly other-worldly” (Mays, Nicholson 59). The authors then critiqued every one of the 100 sermons resulting in “twenty-six sermons touching on practical life situations and fifty-four predominantly other-worldly, with the remainder as theological” (Pratt 503). The authors state how the issue lies in the fact that the sermons lacked in the areas where they didn’t address the spiritual with the political, economic, or racial aspects of the world. The sermons were primarily an adjustment focusing on other-worldliness, but understanding more about the practical and how that relates to major life struggles of the black Negro politically and economically would further educate the black body as a whole. With numbers rising of young blacks entering the ministry, they must be aware of the positive and the negative places for improvement as it will help the entirety of the black population as the Negro church is essential to black soul, education, and agency. The Negro church has flaws and yet it is still so powerful, and the authors try to convey that by looking at the genius of the Negro church (located in The Negro’s Church in chapter XVII). The black churches, after the authors analyzed the data, are being represented by ministers who aren’t properly educated on the subject and therefore ultimately focus their sermons on the other-worldly and on the “magical conception of religion” (Mays, Nicholson 278). There is not enough talk about the social problems, the politics, and race-relations in the church and there are so many black churches but most live in debt working to persist in the United States. Although there are so many issues and areas for improvement in the Negro church, the church’s power is invested in what it allows black population to do. In society, the church is the first area that blacks can finally control and have ownership in Negro life. “The opportunity found in the Negro church to be recognized, and to be “somebody,” has stimulated the pride and persevered the respect of many Negroes who would have been entirely beaten by life, and possibly completely submerged” (281). The Negro church ultimately becomes a home and social center as it gives the body of people a place to organize and feel free of expression in society. It becomes key to how blacks stay grounded and learn to move and progress in a society that constantly belittles their worth. == References == *Pratt, Butler D. “The Negro’s Church.” The Journal of Negro Education 2. 4 (1933): 502-505. *Mays, Benjamin E. and Joseph W. Nicholson. The Negro’s Church. New York: Arno Press, Inc., 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Negro's Church」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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