The Black Megachurch: Theology, Gender, and the Politics of Public Engagement

1--INTRODUCTION: Answering the Knock at Midnight

1 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Answering the Knock at Midnight The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to say that it has atrophied its will. But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice and peace. Men far and near will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travelers at midnight. —Martin Luther King Jr.,“A Knock at Midnight” (1963) In his 1963 sermon “A Knock at Midnight,” Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of his most concise yet complex statements about the role of the church in public life. The sermon provided both a critique of the role churches were 2 THE BLACK MEGACHURGH playing and a normative statement about the role they should play. Referring to Jesus’ parable, King pondered how the church should respond when a man knocks on the door of the church asking for bread at midnight. The “man” of course refers to people in need. The midnight hour—the deepest, darkest hour of the night—symbolizes the time of most urgent need. Delivering this sermon in 1963, in the midst of the civil rights revolution, King described many different “midnights,” both collective and individual: the midnight of racial oppression , the midnight of war, the midnight of economic deprivation, the midnight of the moral order, and the midnight of despair. It is clear from his sermon that King viewed most churches as failing to respond to human need. White churches in the United States resistant to civil rights advances answered the knock with “cold indifference or blatant hypocrisy ” instead of the bread of justice and freedom. And black churches did not escape King’s critique. He noted that “many so-called Negro churches also failed to feed the lonely traveler.” He said that there were two kinds of black churches that failed to answer the knock—the type that“burns with emotionalism ”and the type that“freezes with classism.”These churches had“neither the vitality nor the relevant gospel to feed hungry souls.”1 “A Knock at Midnight” was a call to action for the church—a normative statement about the role the church should play in public life. Churches should be activist and not apolitical. They should engage in public life to meet human need, but they should do so not as “master or servant of the state” but as the state’s “guide and critic.” The church should also provide hope and assurance that things will eventually get better. King noted that the churches themselves should be reminded of the Negro spiritual “I’m So Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always.”2 In the more than forty years since Martin Luther King Jr. challenged the church to progressively engage public life, American society has changed. For African Americans the positive impact of the civil rights revolution is undeniable . The opening of the electoral system resulted in the drastically increased number of black elected officials—including the election of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States. The number of blacks who graduate high school and finish college has also drastically increased, and the fruits of the Civil Rights Movement include an expanded black middle class. Related to this expanded middle class there is also a change in the landscape of black churches—the development of the black megachurch. These black megachurches, some of which feature seating for ten to twenty thousand INTRODUCTION 3 people, multi-million-dollar business enterprises, and opulence, display wealth and luxury that surprise even the most ardent critics. But even with all these signs of progress it is clear it is still midnight for...