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Reginald F. Davis believes thereis a crisis in black America.

Disproportionately, black Americans rank at the top in crime, murders, drugabuse, unemployment, incarceration, poverty, education deficiencies, andHIV/AIDS cases. Physical slavery is past and the civil rights bill has beensigned, yet the black community is not saved, is not healed, is not organized,is not liberated.

Davis’s latest book, The Black Church: Relevant or Irrelevant in the 21stCentury?, emerges from his great love, admiration, and deep concern for thefuture of the black community and the black church. Davis contends that arelevant church struggles to correct oppression, not maintain it. An irrelevantchurch sees the self-destructive behavior, oppression, and powerlessness of theoppressed but refuses to take the necessary steps to eradicate it. How can theblack church focus on the liberation of the black community, thereby reclaim-ing the loyalty and respect of the black community?

Davis also challenges the white church to understand and acknowledgewhat the malignancy of racism has done and still does to the body of Christ.He asserts that the white church cannot continue to remain silent on issues ofoppression; it must preach against racism as well as be an agent of justice andliberation. Ultimately, churches—both black and white—must come togetherto be the Word of God to the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized.

Reginald F. Davis was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Heattended Shelby State Community College in Memphis(AS), Incarnate Word College in San Antonio (BA),Colgate Rochester Divinity School (M.Div.), and FloridaState University (Ph.D.). He has been an adjunct professorat Florida A&M University and Barry University in

Tallahassee. He is a frequent radio guest and lecturer at colleges, universities,and churches across the nation. He currently resides in Williamsburg,Virginia, with his wife and three children. He is the author of FrederickDouglass: A Precursor of Liberation Theology.

Chapter 2

The Sleeping Giant amid a People in Crisis

“One of the great liabilities of life is that all too manypeople find themselves living amid a great period ofsocial change and yet they fail to develop the new atti-tudes, the new mental responses that the new situationdemands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.

—Martin Luther King Jr.

While the Black Church Sleeps Legend says Napoleon once pointed to a map of China and said, “There liesa sleeping giant. If it ever wakes up, it will be unstoppable.”1 When we lookat the black church, we can say what Napoleon said about China. “There liesa sleeping giant.” While the black church sleeps, black America is torn apartby violence, scarcity of resources, unemployment, meaninglessness, misedu-cation, and health-damaging conditions like hopelessness and apathy. As theeconomic gap for black America widens, more prisons are built and filledwith a disproportionate number of black people. The black underclass feelsthe pain of isolation and alienation, and, according to Ellis Cose, the rageamong the privileged class mounts:

Despite its very evident prosperity, much of America’s black middle class isin excruciating pain. And that distress—although most of the country does

not see it—illuminates a serious American problem: the problem of thebroken covenant, of the pact ensuring that if you work hard, get a goodeducation, and play by the rules, you will be allowed to advance andachieve to the limits of your ability.2

Many believe the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. articulated is progres-sively showing signs of Malcolm X’s nightmare. Fear and uncertainty inblack America have reached disastrous levels. Self-sabotage and self-destruc-tion are all too common in the black community. The black church sleepsthrough one of the most critical times in human history, forfeiting a greatopportunity to bring about positive and lasting change to a people in crisis.

Cain Hope Felder wrote about the profound slumber of black Americain general and the black church in particular, comparing them to the “junglesloth” from a story he read in high school. The sloth’s “sluggish routineincluded little more than eating, moving about upside down, or just hanging in trees, always seeking some comfortable place to rest and sleep . . .sleep . . . sleep!” Felder likens many black communities to

colonies of jungle sloths—complacent, selfish, toothless, and complaining,whether seeming “masters” or manifest victims of endless excuses at a timewhen such excuses only foster further socioeconomic, political, and spiri-tual erosion. . . . Many in the Black community have in varied ways fallenback to sleep amid the galvanizing shocks and cries of the modern era. Pastvisions of creativity, achievement, and solidarity are on the wane, and toomany in our time find a woeful kinship with the jungle sloth!3

I am not sure how the black church can remain relevant in a state of pro-found unconsciousness. Many people come to church Sunday after Sundayto have their emotional thirst quenched, but they still suffer psychologically,economically, and socially. Emotional satisfaction lasts only so long before itbecomes distress and bitterness. Frederick Douglass discovered years ago thatthe church has “substituted religion for humanity. We have substituted aform of Godliness, an outside show for the real thing itself. We have housesbuilt for the worship of God, which are regarded as too sacred to plead thecause of the downtrodden million in them.”4 These days the black church isaddicted to religiosity instead of liberation. It spends more time, energy, andresources on non-liberating activities like church programs, annual days,conferences, and conventions than on liberating the community from eco-nomic, social, and political oppression. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “We

36 THE BLACK CHURCH

must never let it be said that we spend more for the evanescent andephemeral than for the eternal values of freedom and justice.”5 Due to itsunconsciousness, the priority of the black church is not where it ought to be.

ComatoseWhat will it take to wake us up? The custodians of the American judicialsystem have neither the interest nor the willingness to stop the oppressiverecycling described by Amos Wilson, who wrote about the system taking theweak and processing them “so that everyone else gets a piece of them”: thecop, the lawyer, the court officers, the correction officers, and the parole offi-cer.6

It appears that the struggle of the black community has not awakenedthe sleeping giant; thus, it seems that the black church must have slippedinto a coma. The black crisis in America speaks too loudly for the blackchurch to remain asleep. If the gunshots of the black community; the cries ofmothers who have lost their sons and daughters to drugs and violence; themore than two million blacks in prison, 90 percent of whom are illiterate;the 70 percent of black children born out of wedlock; the double-digitunemployment rate in the black community; the AIDS epidemic at homeand in Africa; Hurricane Katrina’s displacement of thousands of blackpeople; and the molestation and murder of children in the black communityhaven’t awakened the church, then we must conclude that the black churchlies in a coma, a state of deep and prolonged unconsciousness. There is noother way it could remain asleep amid the chaos in black America. We musttake steps to awaken the black church. We dream while sleeping. The dreamcan be pleasant or a nightmare. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a liberatedpeople cannot happen unless we wake up and make the dream a reality; otherwise, Malcolm X’s nightmare will be our reality:

No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who arevictims of Americanism. One of the . . . victims of democracy, nothing butdisguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing here speaking to you as anAmerican, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver-no, not I! I’mspeaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America throughthe eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an Americannightmare! 7

THE SLEEPING GIANT AMID A PEOPLE IN CRISIS 37

Trumpet BlastIn ancient times, God instructed the prophet Ezekiel to blow his trumpet towarn the people of God’s impending judgment. As God long ago instructedthe prophet to alert the people, God today calls the conscious leaders of theblack church to blow the trumpet to wake up the sleeping giant and callattention to the community’s crisis. Few enjoy pointing out the wrongs oftheir fellow countrymen. Few prefer to carry bad news or blow a trumpetwhile others sleep comfortably. Few wish to be labeled a troublemaker. Fewwant to disturb rather than comfort. But there comes a time when we mustaccept the labor and burden of curing the soul. There comes a time when wemust disturb, a time when we must “comfort the afflicted and afflict thecomfortable.” It is not something we relish, but woe unto us if we don’tspeak out. Although it is dangerous and life threatening to stand and tell thetruth in a climate of religious hypocrisy, political lies, and social deceit, nev-ertheless, we who are awake and conscious must do so if we are to save theblack community from self-destruction. James Cone wrote, “Preaching thegospel, doing Christian theology, and speaking the truth are interrelated, andneither can be correctly understood apart from liberation struggles of thepoor and marginalized.”8 If the church is not for Christ, it is against Christ,and we cannot be for Christ and neglect the poor and the oppressed.

God’s prophets were often compelled to speak the truth, and they calledinto question the practices and dealings of the people. The persistent themein Israelite prophecy is God’s concern for the lack of economic, social, andpolitical justice for the marginalized of society. The Hebrew prophets madeit clear that God’s anger is riled when the poor have no defense and whenthey are constant victims of injustice. The prophets show us that God is aGod of liberation. If the black church prefers ease and comfort to armingitself with the gospel of liberation against oppression, then there is nothingthe prophet can do when the crisis produces destruction. One thing is cer-tain, however: if the leaders of the postmodern church fail to warn those whocontrol the social system, the blood of the people will be on the hands of theleaders. God gives the prophet a warning in Ezekiel 33:6: “But, if the watch-man see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be notwarned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he istaken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’shand.” God expects the church and its leaders to warn those in power aboutGod’s displeasure with injustice, and when the church and its leaders fail todo this, God will hold the church and its leaders responsible. Speaking out

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against evil and injustice is a mandate that the church cannot circumvent.The messages the prophets delivered were often unpopular and not politi-cally correct, but they got to the heart of the people’s problem.

No ResistanceThe postmodern black church has accepted oppression with little to noresistance, allowing the ongoing wrongs against the poor and undevelopednations of the world without aggressive protest. Sleep produced apathy thatperpetuates the reign of oppression in the black community. Amos Wilsonstated, “Apathy in subordinated Afrikans provides White supremacy itsstrongest bulwark against defeat. The greatest struggle of oppressed Afrikansis not against their White oppressors but against their own apathy.”9 It is welldocumented that God is against the church for allowing oppression over lib-eration, profit over human life, and programs over ministries that do not setcaptives free. Amid a racist social system, the sleeping church sits in silencewhile the disintegration of the black community continues to spin out ofcontrol. Without the cooperation of the church and community, theprospects for a better day are bleak. Unless the church resists forces ofdestruction and turns its “audience into an army and transform[s] spectatorsinto participants,” the black community will continue to experience alien-ation and disintegration.10

Paul Tillich blamed the ruling group for a nation’s atrocities. “But allindividuals in a nation are responsible for the existence of the ruling group,”he wrote. “Not many individuals in Germany are directly guilty of the Naziatrocities. But all of them are responsible for the acceptance of a governmentwhich was willing and able to do such things.”11 As long as the black churchrefuses to resist evil and injustice, the unjust system will continue to grindthe people of God to dust. If the people awaken at the rousing trumpet blastof truth only to fall asleep again, they do this at their own peril. If they aredestroyed, they cannot blame anyone but themselves, for they received amplewarning.

Our Collective GoalOur collective goal as pastors, theologians, and Christian educators is towake up the sleeping giant. The black church must be part of the solution,not the problem. In order to transform black America’s present situation, theblack church must wake up, stand up, and step up to bring the community

THE SLEEPING GIANT AMID A PEOPLE IN CRISIS 39

out of its deep and disturbing malaise. The black church can never truly befree until the community it serves is set free. The destiny of the two is tiedtogether. The community affects the life of the church, and the churchaffects the life of the community. The two must work together to transformthe present situation. This requires renewal in the black church, a reorderingof priorities to serve the suffering masses so that the black church is relevantin the twenty-first century.

For example, black churches like Trinity United Church of Christ inChicago, New Birth in Georgia, Abyssinia Baptist church in New York City,Crenshaw Christian Center in California, New Light Christian Center inTexas, and many more are operating programs to feed the hungry, shelter thehomeless, educate the disadvantaged; they are giving financial support tojumpstart black businesses, holding literacy programs, and creating anatmosphere and space for youth activities. Although they are few in numbercompared to the number of black churches across the country, thesechurches are models of relevancy in one way or another for the twenty-firstcentury. The goal is to get more churches involve in meeting the needs of thecommunity for its liberation. When the black church commits itself to theliberation of the community and empowers people by helping them takecharge of their lives for the creation of a new humanity, then the blackchurch becomes relevant once again.

To overlook the liberation of a suffering people by highlighting otherinterests like annual days, church anniversaries, building edifices, and confer-ences, etc., is to make religion the opiate of the people. Since Jesus Christ isthe head and master of the church, the church is his servant in society. AsCone wrote, “Being a servant of Jesus involves more than meeting togetherevery Sunday for worship and other liturgical gatherings. . . . Servanthoodincludes a political component that thrusts a local congregation in society,where it must take sides with the poor. Servanthood is a call to action thatcommits one to struggle for the poor.”12 It is a call to struggle against institu-tional structures that keep the poor handicapped and hopeless. The churchmust develop a liberating mind by seeing life from the same perspective asChrist saw it. Jesus Christ saw the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, the blind,the lame, the outcast of society and made them his primary concern. With aliberating mind, the church can work to liberate the oppressed and proclaimthe kingdom of God.

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Questions and Concerns about Integration Without question, the black church was at the center of helping blackAmerica desegregate during the 1960s. Today, black America is an allegedlyintegrated people but surely not an independent people. Many of us thoughtintegration was the social, economic, and political salvation of the blackcommunity. As we look back and analyze integration, though, some questionits effectiveness. Did integration help or hurt us as a people? Was integrationthe panacea for economic, social, and political oppression? Are some of thestaggering statistics facing black people due in part to integration? The ques-tions of integration are not an indictment against Martin Luther King Jr.and those who struggled to better the plight of black America. However,these questions are raised in light of deteriorating conditions, the high per-centage of high school dropouts, and the unacceptable level ofunderachievement of too many of our black youth in the post-civil rightsstruggle.

We are still sleeping if we think we have fully integrated in our Americansociety. A social change has been made, but change does not mean a correc-tion takes place. It is possible to change something without correcting it. Forinstance, a house with structural problems can be beautified to give theappearance of a sound building. Whatever is done to beautify the house is achange, but the house is not actually sound without a structural correction.The social structures in America have made a change, but they are not cor-rected. There is still inequality in power, education, medical care, and otherareas. Until it is verified that black people have fully integrated by holdingequal power and serving in the decision-making process that creates policesdirectly affecting the lives of black people, the situation of integration isquestionable. True integration is when two equal powers come together. Thecultural ideals of both must be included, but when one cultural ideal isadvanced at the expense of everything that conforms to it, assimilation, notintegration, takes place.13

The power of black people is not equal to that of white people. The civilrights struggle was actually an exercise in assimilation. Assimilation absorbsthe culture, character, and uniqueness of a people and places them in anunequal position within the power structure to enhance the survival andwell-being of the dominant group. It is called integration, but it is reallyassimilation. Black America must understand that racism, like oppression, isan exercise in power, and until blacks have equal power, the problem ofracism and oppression remains. Paulo Freire wrote, “The solution is not to

THE SLEEPING GIANT AMID A PEOPLE IN CRISIS 41

‘integrate’ [the oppressed] into the structure of oppression, but to transformthat structure so [the oppressed] can become ‘beings’ for themselves.”14

Additionally, Amos Wilson made a cogent observation about integration:

We are hanging by a thin thread. The more “integrated” we become, theweaker we become: the more dependent we become. One day when wethink we’ve got it made at the mint, when we are “holding hands with littleBlack girls and little White girls” — the switch will fall. And then we findout that we are left completely in the open not having prepared at all todeal with the situation. The Jews learned a serious lesson about that: wecan be in the universities; we can create an Einstein: we can make greatcontributions to this society but that may not keep us from going to theoven.15

Progression but No PossessionMany argue that blacks have made progress, and I don’t disagree with thisassessment. We have black mayors, governors, senators, congresspersons, andCEOs of major corporations. We have civil rights and voting rights. While Icannot deny the progress of black America, black America needs to wake upand understand that we have not achieved total liberation. We have not pos-sessed economic, social, and political power in such a way to become powerbrokers in the American economy. Having positions and titles doesn’t meanblack people are liberated. Unless a people possess power, they cannotcounter the power that rules over them and turns against them. They are at adangerous disadvantage. Those who think black America has arrived and hasintegrated, and that there is no longer a need for social, economic, and polit-ical struggle, Must consider questions like these Wilson proposes:

Who has control of your food? Who has control of your electricity? Whohas control of your water? Of your jobs? . . . What would happen if these[places] we live in today are surrounded by a force that blocks the food andthe water, cuts off the electricity and the other things? What kind of situa-tion would we be in? . . . Therefore, if we wish to change this situation (i.e.,the conditions under which we live), then we must change the power rela-tionships. If we are to prevent ourselves from being created by anotherpeople and are to engage in the act of self-creation, then we must changethe power relations.16

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Being at the mercy of another group does not mean liberation and equality.Black America must start to depend on itself and harness power itself; other-wise, another people will always exercise power over them. This is a perilousposition for black people. The African holocaust and Nazis Germany are dis-tinguishing reminders of what can happen to a people in subjugation.

Economic InfrastructureTo change the power relationship, black America must develop its own eco-nomic infrastructure. Blacks cannot achieve this by building a church onevery corner. We have too many churches and not enough businesses. AsErnest M. Fountain reminded us, “for profit businesses started non-profitbusinesses for the purpose of reducing their tax burden in an effort toaddress the social ills of society.”17 Since churches are classified as non-profitorganizations, black America cannot create an economic infrastructure byhaving churches, all non-profits, and no businesses, or for-profits. The blackcommunity needs more businesses than churches to change the conditionsunder which its people live. Ali asks, “Could it be that we have somehow lostsight of the people for the church building we feel so compelled to build?Could it be that these structures, some so massive, are blocking our view ofthe mission field right outside the church doors? . . . The black church is incrisis, as it fails to adequately address the collective survival and liberationissues of Black America.”18

The black church must wake up and understand how critical economicpower is to the liberation of the community. Too much of the resources ofthe black church and community are wasted on non-liberating ventures. Thegreat outflow of black dollars impoverishes the black community. The blackcommunity unemployment rate is in the double digits, and this is part of nothaving an economic infrastructure. Because there is no employment in theblack community, crime and hopelessness are played out in the streets of ourcities. Black-on-black crime is a grievous example of people preying onthemselves just to survive, and until the black church understands how econ-omy works for job creation in the black community, blacks will continue tofill the morgues of our cities. It is heartrending to know that black Americahas a buying power in the billions of dollars, but the black community is notbenefiting from those billions. In an editorial, Lamarr Brown stated,

The overall consumerism of Blacks in America is enough to run a thirdworld country; yet, Blacks in America have no means of production, con-

THE SLEEPING GIANT AMID A PEOPLE IN CRISIS 43

trol, or distribution of the majority of the goods and services that areneeded in the Black community. . . . Several major areas of Black con-sumerism are targeted by other ethnic groups who come to America,receive government loans to purchase businesses in our Black neighbor-hoods, and at the end of the day take the money away without anyreinvestments in our Black communities.19

No one but the black community can stop this situation. Carter G. Woodson wondered, “Why should the Negro wait for some one fromwithout to urge him to self-assertion when he sees himself robbed by hisemployer, defrauded by his merchant, and hushed up by government agentsof injustice?”20 Foreigners who come into the black community and set upbusinesses are taking advantage of economic opportunities that are the samefor blacks. Until black America commits to loving and supporting itself,others will always impose upon blacks, exploit them, and manipulate them.

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Church/Culture

Da

vis

Th

e B

la

ck

Ch

ur

ch

Reginald F. Davis believes thereis a crisis in black America.

Disproportionately, black Americans rank at the top in crime, murders, drugabuse, unemployment, incarceration, poverty, education deficiencies, andHIV/AIDS cases. Physical slavery is past and the civil rights bill has beensigned, yet the black community is not saved, is not healed, is not organized,is not liberated.

Davis’s latest book, The Black Church: Relevant or Irrelevant in the 21stCentury?, emerges from his great love, admiration, and deep concern for thefuture of the black community and the black church. Davis contends that arelevant church struggles to correct oppression, not maintain it. An irrelevantchurch sees the self-destructive behavior, oppression, and powerlessness of theoppressed but refuses to take the necessary steps to eradicate it. How can theblack church focus on the liberation of the black community, thereby reclaim-ing the loyalty and respect of the black community?

Davis also challenges the white church to understand and acknowledgewhat the malignancy of racism has done and still does to the body of Christ.He asserts that the white church cannot continue to remain silent on issues ofoppression; it must preach against racism as well as be an agent of justice andliberation. Ultimately, churches—both black and white—must come togetherto be the Word of God to the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized.

Reginald F. Davis was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Heattended Shelby State Community College in Memphis(AS), Incarnate Word College in San Antonio (BA),Colgate Rochester Divinity School (M.Div.), and FloridaState University (Ph.D.). He has been an adjunct professorat Florida A&M University and Barry University in

Tallahassee. He is a frequent radio guest and lecturer at colleges, universities,and churches across the nation. He currently resides in Williamsburg,Virginia, with his wife and three children. He is the author of FrederickDouglass: A Precursor of Liberation Theology.