Black Churches

NEW YORK -- For hundreds of years, millions of blacks were captured in Africa and forced to cross the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, where they became slaves.Early yesterday morning, more than 1,000 black descendants of those slaves made a symbolic trip from St. Paul Community Baptist Church in East New York, Brooklyn, to the shores of that same ocean to pay homage to their ancestors, as part of a religious remembrance of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.The travelers arrived on the beaches of the Rockaway peninsula about 4 a.m. for a sunrise service led by the Rev. Johnny Ray Youngblood, the pastor of St. Paul, who organized the tribute, which is held every year.

Bishop John Maury Allin, the 23rd presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, who was a pivotal supporter of Mississippi's NTC effort to rebuild burned black churches in the 1960s but was an ardent critic of the ordination of women, died Friday in Jackson, Miss.He was 77 and had been struggling with complications from a stroke he suffered a week before his death. He also had lung cancer.Bishop Allin was elected presiding bishop in 1973 and served in that position until he retired in 1986. Often called John the 23rd by those who knew him well, he was chosen to lead the church during one of its most divisive periods, as factions were beginning to press for the inclusion of blacks and women.

Like so many busy moms, Karen Vinson was 20 pounds overweight and out of shape.But unlike many moms, she decided to do something about it - and wound up in a successful business venture.About 10 years ago, when she was in her mid-20s, the Baltimore financial analyst wanted something to take off pounds and give her a night out. She remembered how much she liked aerobics when she was at Morgan State University, before her second child was born, and how she would gather whoever was hanging out and run an impromptu class.

WASHINGTON -- One year after a rash of fires at black churches prompted the creation of a national task force to combat church arson, its leaders said yesterday that they had found no evidence of a racist conspiracy or even a clear pattern to the crimes."

WASHINGTON -- Just as it took President Richard Nixon to open the door to China, will it take the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed to open the door between white conservatives and the African-American masses?Some will find the idea laughable. As the executive director of the Rev. Pat Robertson's very big, influential and conservative Christian Coalition, Mr. Reed has vigorously opposed mainstream civil-rights leaders on such issues as affirmative action and welfare reform.But the idea of Beijing hosting the notorious red-baiter Nixon sounded laughable, too, until it happened.

WASHINGTON -- One year after a rash of fires at black churches prompted the creation of a national task force to combat church arson, its leaders said yesterday that they had found no evidence of a racist conspiracy or even a clear pattern to the crimes."

A Baltimore insurer and a consulting firm that advises black churches have teamed up to offer a new series of life insurance policies -- with biblical names and features including a tithing of death benefits -- designed to help black churches raise money and reach an "underserved market."The "Faithful Steward Series" of policies was announced yesterday by Fidelity and Guaranty Life Insurance, part of USF&G Corp., and H&R Consulting of Baltimore, which provides accounting, financial advice and other consulting services for black churches.

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church's planned expansion to Baltimore County is part of a fast-growing trend of black-church development in the county.In the past five years, at least 10 predominantly black churches have opened or expanded along the Liberty Road corridor alone, church and government officials say. Thirteen years ago, there was one there.There's been a proliferation of small churches locating in school gymnasiums, office buildings and strip malls, especially in Woodlawn and Randallstown, church and government officials say."

DIXIANA, S.C. -- Robert Glenn Emerson, a 17-year-old high school dropout, reclined in a beat-up Lazyboy, kept his eyes on a talk show and admitted in a monotone that he's caused some trouble in his life. Once police caught him shoplifting cigarettes. Another time they warned him to stop beating up his girlfriend.In the tumble-down trailer park where he lives, Emerson said a little trouble is the only thing that makes life exciting. But his hazel eyes moved off the television when asked about charges that he burned St. John's Baptist Church.

I know what this sounds like. It sounds like a country-western song, but it's the real deal: Some guy got married and discovered his new wife loved him but not his dog. So he loaded her up (the dog, that is) and drove on out to a semirural stretch of northern Baltimore County. And before abandoning his old faithful friend, he wrapped $5 and a note in aluminum foil and stuck it on the dog's collar. This is what he wrote:"My name is Muffin. Although my daddy loves me a lot, my new mommy doesn't like me and wants me put asleep.

The Rev. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr. considers the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. to be a tremendous pastor and a brilliant theologian. But sitting in the audience of the National Press Club in Washington this week, Hathaway found himself wincing at some of the remarks by Sen. Barack Obama's embattled former pastor. "When Jeremiah Wright says an attack on him is `an attack on the black church,' that's kind of stretching things," said Hathaway, pastor of Baltimore's Union Baptist Church. "I think it's potentially dangerous."

Ministers at black churches know the power of words. In recent weeks, the explosive words of one minister - the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - have been used to bludgeon one of his church members, Sen. Barack Obama, creating a national debate on race and religion. Yesterday, on the holiest day of the year for Christians, black ministers used more measured language to explain Wright's incendiary sentiments while also appealing to their congregations to not be divided and distracted by political games.

NEWARK, N.J. --Three times, the Waters family knew the bone-deep dread of losing their baby, Noble Tyre Waters, who had a severely diseased colon and needed a transplant. After undergoing three transplants, Noble died five years ago at the age of 15 months. "I can't begin to imagine the pain and agony for those families who were able to extend our son's life, but I can imagine the joy, when hope seemed not to exist, of being told three times that our son had gotten a reprieve," said Noble's father, Robert Kevin Waters, who sponsors a Little League team called the Lifesavers to help spread the word about organ donations.

After spending yesterday morning in church, Roxanne King felt enlightened - but not in the typical Sunday kind of way. At her West Baltimore church, St. James Episcopal, King listened to an appeal for blacks to consider becoming organ donors. She heard about the long lists of sick people waiting for livers, kidneys and hearts. And she heard how many of those people are African-American. Before all that, King said, there was "no way" she'd have been a donor. And she's still not sure. The difference is that now she's willing to think about it. "Right now there is a possibility," she said.

ATLANTA -- Though President Bush rarely mentions it -- too many conservatives in Congress are uncomfortable with a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions -- conservative preachers and right-wing activists can't let go of gay marriage. They're still using its "threat" to traditional families to rally their parishioners, lest they forget to be judgmental and slip into love and mercy. Nowhere are the front lines in the battle against gay marriage tended with more care than in conservative black churches, where ministers regularly denounce homosexuality as an abomination.

The Rev. Walter E. Middlebrooks, pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church in Annapolis since July 2001, rejoiced with his congregation this weekend as it celebrated 200 years of faith and community. "This is just a great time of jubilation," Middlebrooks said. "We became a congregation during the time of slavery, so there's a certain sense of achievement that comes from having held the community together during such times." The congregation began the weekend with an open house Friday night and plans to conclude today with a special worship service.

Like a sea of humanity, nearly 20,000 swaying and singing worshipers packed the Baltimore Convention Center, transforming the exhibition hall into a tent revival. The organ pumped, an electric bass drove the urban gospel beat and a massed choir raised its voices in praise. The churchgoers rose as one, hands clapping, arms raised, some jumping up and down in an ecstatic dance of the Holy Spirit. The recent national convention of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship attracted Baptists, Methodists and others who a decade ago would have worshiped in the confines of their own denominations.

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. - For 135 years, Mud Creek Missionary Baptist Church has served as a spiritual and civic touchstone for some of Henderson County's oldest black families. "Mother" Rena Clay's ancestors were among freed slaves from Charleston, S.C., who formed Mud Creek Missionary's congregation in 1867 in a borrowed white meeting hall. Now Clay, 78, and her daughter, Wanda Horne, are among the handful of parishioners who attend services in the small white structure in the community of East Flat Rock.

Up to 20,000 African-American Christians will gather today in Baltimore for three days of prayer, preaching and praise, all part of a decade-old movement that advocates a controversial fusion of the spirit-filled worship of Pentecostalism with Baptist tradition. The Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International, which comprises 1,500 congregations, "has been designed to bridge the gap," said Bishop Paul S. Morton Sr., who founded the movement in 1992. Its 9th annual conference, the first on the East Coast, will convene at the Baltimore Convention Center.

After 115 years as the home of Mount Zion United Methodist Church, the pretty Ellicott City building perched on a hill is more a tribulation than a blessing. Its aging interior is too small, and the leaky spots, outdated bathrooms and steep steps keep potential new members away, leaders say. The 61-member congregation - which last year was renamed New Zion Center of Hope - decided last month to move to a more modern building in Baltimore County this year. But church leaders are hoping to transform their ancestral building on Main Street into a different kind of sanctuary.