African Americans - General & Miscellaneous, African American Biography & Memoir, General & Miscellaneous Religion, Religious Biography, African American Biography

Reviving the Spirit : A Generation of African Americans Goes Home to Church

Name: Reviving the Spirit : A Generation of African Americans Goes Home to Church
Author: Beverly H. Lawrence
ISBN: 9780802134998

by Beverly H. Lawrence

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Overview

Recently, many newspaper and magazine stories have focused on the return of young African Americans to the nation's 65,000 black churches; the Washington Post called it "a movement sweeping middle-class black congregations." In part, this shift parallels a trend in the majority population that has found baby boomers increasingly interested in spirituality. But while the new spirituality may account for part of the revival of interest among blacks, something even more dramatic is going on. African Americans are not just returning to the church in search of divine salvation; they are returning to the only American institution they truly control, in the hope of reviving its role as a command center and strategic outpost for social change and renewal. The church continues to emit a powerful "homing signal" for African Americans who were raised in it but who wandered away in the years following the civil rights movement in the sixties. It is a power base, a place to congregate and align in large numbers, a battle station for economic and political reform, and a sanctuary for traditional African American culture. For many blacks with children, the church is a community and educational center, a source of strong ethical and moral values. For some it presents an opportunity to return to communities and people who were abandoned along the road to "bourgeois" affluence; for others it offers an extended family and a plain old great place to socialize.

Sister Lawrence calls upon personal experiences, as well as those of parishioners at Bethel Methodist Church in Baltimore, to comment on the reasons why young African Americans have begun to return in droves to the nation's 65,000 black churches.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Newspaper editor Lawrence traces her own journey home to church through the lens of the broader movement of African Americans back to the church. Observing the rapid growth of her own church in Baltimore, Lawrence collects here the testimonies of her fellow church members about their reasons for returning. These stories show clearly that the African American church is the primary agent for social change and community education in the lives of the African American community. Thus, the revival of the spirit in this community is a return home to the institution that fosters personal and social renewal. Lawrence's memoir-cum-social analysis is a lyrically written Habits of the Heart (LJ 3/1/85) for the African American community. An important addition to all collections.