Trinity United Church of Christ
Trinity United Church of Christ | |
---|---|
Country | USA |
Denomination | United Church of Christ |
Membership | Over 8,500 |
History | |
Founded | December 3, 1961 |
Trinity United Church of Christ is a predominantly
The church's early history coincided with the
In early 2008, as part of their presidential election coverage, news media outlets and political commentators brought Trinity to national attention when controversial excerpts of sermons by the church's longtime former pastor Jeremiah Wright were broadcast to highlight Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's pastoral relationship with Wright and the church. Obama responded with a speech, A More Perfect Union, which addressed the criticisms and largely alleviated them from popular political criticisms at the time.[6]
Trinity is best known today for its national and international social programs on behalf of the disadvantaged, although in its earliest days such outreach did not figure into its mission.[3][4][5]
Background and history
Social and religious context
Patterns of migration among both blacks during the Great Migration of African Americans between 1910 and 1940, and among whites, are an important part of the social context in which Trinity was founded. Another is the threat that radical black nationalism and black Islam posed to Christianity's influence among Chicago blacks, as well as to blacks nationwide. As these movements gained ground among Chicago blacks, Trinity sought to turn the attention of blacks back to Christianity.
1910 through 1940s
Beginning around 1910, the Great Migration of African Americans occurred as many thousands of blacks migrated northward from the south. A great many settled on Chicago's southside. When they arrived, they brought with them the forms of Christianity they had practiced in the South. As elsewhere in the United States, Chicago blacks of the time faced serious discrimination in typically every area of their existence.
In the early 1930s,
By the 1940s, the Nation of Islam's radical message had drawn in thousands of Chicago's blacks, many who had converted from one of the forms of Christianity their forebears brought northward to Chicago (see
1950s through 1960
Another of the contextual backdrops of Trinity is a pattern of migration that occurred in Chicago during the 1950s and 1960s, when middle-class whites began vacating urban areas for surrounding
Meanwhile, by 1960, the Nation of Islam national spokesperson Malcolm X had founded Mr. Muhammad Speaks in Chicago to help the continued spread of the Nation of Islam message. The newspaper achieved a circulation of over 600,000, making it one of the most prominent black American newspapers of the time. By this time, Nation of Islam ideology held a quite significant sway over Chicago blacks.[7][11][12]
Founding
It was within the above social context that Trinity came into being.
1961 through 1966: under Kenneth B. Smith
Trinity marks its beginning on December 3, 1961, when twelve middle-class black families, most of whom were descendants of migrants to Chicago during The Great Migration of African Americans, met for worship in a Chicago elementary school gymnasium. Prior to the recent migration of whites to the suburbs, blacks had found it extremely difficult to move into middle-class surroundings in Chicago due to segregated housing patterns and homeownership discrimination (also see Racial steering). At the time of the 3 December meeting, Chicago's Halsted Street marked "the color line".[8][9][13]
Sidenote: Congregationalist worship at Trinity, 1960s During the late 19th century, Congregationalist missionaries, working through the American Missionary Association, established numerous black colleges and universities throughout the U.S. south and north.[14] They insisted that educated blacks eliminate displays of emotion during singing and preaching. This practice widely persisted through much of the 1960s and was carried over into black Congregationalist churches; some AMA-derived churches in the UCC still use a more restrained liturgy to this day.[15] Worship services at Trinity during the 1960s followed the standard order of service for Congregationalist churches: prayers, followed by liturgy and hymns from The Pilgrim Hymnal, followed by a well-organized homily, followed by a benediction, confined to one hour in total.[16] There was no shouting, hand waving, or displays of emotions. One of Trinity's black ministers once stated from the pulpit, "We will have no 'niggerisms' in our services."[17] |
Trinity's first pastor,
Although the vision was bold for the time, and although a similar vision had been followed by other pockets of blacks both inside and outside of Chicago, it at the same time produced apprehension within Trinity's
Considerably later, the first African American conference minister of the United Church of Christ, the Rev. Dr.
With the church's vision still maturing, Kenneth B. Smith remained as pastor and led the still growing congregation, while noting two things. Firstly, he said the church's affiliation with a white denomination provided his congregants with a sense of unity and purpose within the mainline religious tradition of America (see Origins of the United Church of Christ). Secondly, the congregation began to find a kindred spirit with the denomination's commitment to justice and equality, as congregant activism began to emerge. Smith pointed to the march from Montgomery to Selma in 1965 under Martin Luther King Jr. as an event that fueled that activism, noting how his congregants made picket signs and joined a Chicago area march in symbolic solidarity with southern blacks. However, Speller notes that the congregation's concern for the voting rights of southern blacks "stood in stark contrast to their obvious blind spot of the Association's position on church growth among African Americans in Chicago—one that supported only middle-class churches".[20]
This period of the church culminated when plans to merge with a white congregation fell through—"whites were not much interested in integration" at the time, as Jason Byassee[21] notes—and the black congregation moved into its first church building in 1966. Seating two-hundred, it was located among the growing community of southern Chicago's middle-class blacks, east of the color line. Meanwhile, the Association continued its push for the church to focus ministry toward middle-class blacks.[17][22][23]
After leaving Trinity, Smith would go on to become pastor of Good Shepherd Church (above) and president of Chicago Theological Seminary.
1966 to 1971: under Willie J. Jamerson
Sidenote: A view of race in 1968 Chicago "Following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr...our family moved into a racially changing Chicago community, where the vestiges of racism literally stood in our way. Racism manifested itself in insurance |
Trinity's second pastor arrived a short time later, just as the
As Speller explains, "The failure of the civil rights movement to usher in an era of genuine integration and harmony between the races turned into a search for an alternative experience of
By 1972, however, Trinity's membership had dwindled from its peak of 341 (in 1968–69) down to 259 members (perhaps 100 of them active),[25] and no one could pinpoint the cause. Jamerson soon resigned to take a position as a schoolteacher, and Trinity was faced with possibly closing its doors. [26]
1971 to 1972: under Reuben A. Sheares II
The church instead opted to bring on the Rev. Reuben A. Sheares II as interim pastor.
Trinity's leaders had thus discovered the reasons for its decline in membership. As a congregation, Trinity would thus need to inaugurate a "shift" in how it viewed both itself and its mission—they needed to let blacks know, both those inside and outside its walls, that Christianity was not at all just a religion for whites. To begin this change, Sheares coined the
In addition to Sheares's new motto, Jordan crafted a new mission statement that encapsulated the church's new vision to be
a source of spiritual sustenance, security, and inspiration; that those participating in our spiritual-social process [may] be strengthened in their commitment...to serve as instruments of God and church in our communities and the world, confronting, transforming and eliminating those things in our culture that lead to the dehumanization of persons and tend to perpetuate their psychological enslavement.
As Trinity sought a new pastor to lead growth, they gave the mission statement to each applicant.[31]
1972 to early 2008: under Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Wright, the son of a long-tenured Philadelphia Baptist minister, interviewed for the Trinity pastorate on December 31, 1971. Jordan recalls that Wright exuded excitement and vision for the church's new mission statement, and that Wright's response to the question "How do you see the role of the Black Church in the black struggle?" (sic) indicated he was the only possible candidate for Trinity. With the church also impressed with Wright's educational credentials—Wright held graduate degrees in English studies and Divinity and was studying for a doctorate in religious history—he was shortly confirmed as the new pastor.[32]
Context and challenges
Speller points out that Wright's arrival at Trinity coincided with the height of the U.S. Black Consciousness Revolution (also see
Youth choir
The first change occurred in late 1972 when Trinity's youth lobbied for a greater role in the church. Under a new choir director the youth brought in, they led musical worship using
From social enhancement to God-consciousness
As Wright philosophized of this period some thirty years later, 'Having a witness among the poor and having a ministry to the poor is one thing, but making the poor folks members of your congregation is something else altogether." Wright further explained, "Failure to have the black poor at the table with you as equals means you are doing missionary work," (sic) while having "poor black folks" (sic) who "sit down at the table as equals" means you are "serious about talking or doing [...] Black theology."[39] As Speller explains, Trinity's congregants "began to slowly move away from the concept of church as a place to enhance and validate their social position to one that appreciated the church as a place for spiritual formation." In sum, Trinity began to more fully move away from its earlier purpose surrounding "middle-classness" to one where devotion to God and the poor took much greater prominence.[40]
God has smiled on us and freed us up to be
God'speople—unshackled by stereotypes and the barriers of assimilation, unshackled by the fear of joining in the struggle for liberation, and unshackled by the stigmas, defeats, or victories of the past. [God] has freed us to be the Church in the world—[God's] Children! Black, Christian and proud of being created in [God's] image and being called by [God's] name.
Speller asserts that the statement indicates that Trinity had journeyed "from
From 1972 to early 2008, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was pastor of Trinity UCC.[42][43][44] In February 2008, Wright retired, and the Rev. Otis Moss III became Trinity's pastor.[1][45][46]
Among the importantant contemporary media features highlighting Wright and Trinity is that by correspondent
Since 2008: under Reverend Otis Moss III
Reverend Dr. Otis Moss III has been Trinity's senior pastor since 2008. He is a graduate of Morehouse College, Yale Divinity School, and Chicago Theological Seminary. His father, Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr., was also an acclaimed preacher before him.
Moss' sermons are video streamed live online internationally through the church's website and some sermons can also be found on YouTube.
Weekly broadcasts of the church's Sunday service are also carried across the US on
Trinity in comparative perspective
Byassee argues that "African Americans have generated distinctly black forms of Christianity since they arrived on these [American] shores" and asserts that "the significance of these forms has been appreciated in
Speller summarizes several interpretive models of black churches that have predominated in scholarly literature from especially prior the 1960s:
The Assimilation Model
Black churches that have been explained as within The Assimilation Model are those primarily composed of middle-class blacks motivated by a racially integrated society and who are willing to disassociate themselves from their ethnic identity to achieve this, as well as to avoid the stereotyped labels sometimes assigned to blacks by whites. This model has been described as the "demise of the Black church for the public good of Blacks."[50]
The Isolation Model
The Isolation Model category has been assigned to those black churches composed of primarily lower-class blacks who lack the optimism of middle-class blacks about societal integration between the races. Churches described as within this model hold to theologies that emphasize "other worldliness" and deemphasize social action within "this world."[50]
The Compensatory Model
The Compensatory Model has been a designation of black churches where congregants find acceptance, appreciation, and applause often denied them within dominant society. Motivation stems from a promise of achieving personal empowerment and recognition, i.e., congregants are "compensated" with improved self-esteem as their peers affirm their successes.[50]
The Ethnic Community-prophetic Model
Speller, following the research of Nelson and Nelson in the 1970s, notes how each of the above three models placed black churches within a reactive rather than a proactive mode. Finding that problematic, and unsatisfied that previous interpretive models accurately depicted black churches that emerged in the 1960s, Nelson and Nelson developed a fourth model, The Ethnic Community-prophetic Model. Black churches that have been categorized as such are those that have been marked by blacks who spoke out and undertook activism against economic and political injustices from a heightened awareness of black pride and power.[50]
The Dialectical Model
In her discussion about Trinity, Speller argues for an additional model of the black church, The Dialectical Model, developed by
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa; he does not wish to bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he believes that Negro blood has yet a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without losing the opportunity of self-development.[53]
The evolution of Trinity
Speller asserts that Trinity in its history has evolved from the Assimilation Model under its pastors Kenneth B. Smith and Willie J. Jamerson, to the Compensatory Model under Reuben A. Sheares II and during the early years of Jeremiah Wright's tenure, and into the Ethnic Community-prophetic Model under Wright to embrace the Dialectical Model also under Wright. She states, however, that the church continues to struggle in varying degrees to balance the dialectic polarities described by Lincoln and Mamiya (see
References
- ^ a b Keogh, Diana (October 1, 2007). "Chicago's Trinity UCC prepares to welcome new pastor for new generation". United Church News. United Church of Christ. Retrieved April 30, 2008.
- ^ Marty, Martin E. "Keeping the Faith at Trinity United Church of Christ". Sightings Available online.
- ^ a b Nelson, Hart M.; Anne Kusener Nelson (1975). Black Church in the 1960s. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 74. B000H1VXOY
- ^ a b "Why Oprah Winfrey Left Rev. Wright's Church". May 3, 2008.
- ^ ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ^ Dilanian, Ken (March 18, 2008). "Defenders say Wright has love, righteous anger for USA". USA Today. Retrieved April 2, 2008.
- ^ a b Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims of America. 3rd ed., 1994.
- ^ ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ^ ISBN 0-521-54827-6.
- ^ Manning, Christopher (2005), "African Americans", Encyclopedia of Chicago. Available online.
- ^ Muhammad, Elijah. The Fall of America, 1973.
- ^ Muhammad, Elijah. Message to the Blackman in America, 1965.
- ^ a b Speller, Julia Michelle. Unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian: One congregation's quest for meaning and belonging (PhD thesis). The University of Chicago. pp. 8–9.
- ^ Stanley, J. Taylor (1978). A History of Black Congregational Christian Churches of the South. United Church Press. B000OFRUJU.
- ISBN 0-8298-0347-5.
- ^ a b Speller, Julia Michelle. Unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian: One congregation's quest for meaning and belonging (PhD thesis). The University of Chicago. pp. 13–14.
- ^ a b c d e f g Jason Byassee (2007). "Africentric church: A Visit to Chicago's Trinity UCC". The Christian Century (May 29): 18–23.
- ^ ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ^ Roof, Wade Clark, "Race and Residence in American Cities," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol 441 (January 1979), 6-7.
- ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ^ Byassee is an editor at The Christian Century.
- ^ According to Speller, however, this foundational focus began to crack deeply when two things occurred: the resignation of Kenneth B. Smith for a ministry position elsewhere, and a significant decline in membership that seemed inexplicable.
- ^ ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- United Methodist News Service, 4 April 2008. [Available online. http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/04/a-umc-pastor-speaks-up-for-jer.html]
- ^ Yearbooks of the United Church of Christ, 1968-72
- ^ ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- interventional cardiologist.[2].
- ^ a b Speller, Julia Michelle. Unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian: One congregation's quest for meaning and belonging (PhD thesis). The University of Chicago. p. 2.
- ^ Speller, Julia Michelle. Unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian: One congregation's quest for meaning and belonging (PhD thesis). The University of Chicago. pp. 20–21.
- ^ Marty, Martin E. "Prophet and Pastor". The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 April 2008. Available online. Archived.
- ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ^ "Black Power in the Pulpit", TIME Magazine. 17 November 1967. Available online.
- ^ Jacqueline S. Mithun, "Black Power and Community Change: An Assessment", Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (March 1977), pp. 263-280.
- ISBN 0-8006-3796-8
- ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ISBN 0-8006-3627-9
- ISBN 0-8006-3627-9
- ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ISBN 0-8298-1522-8.
- ^ Brachear, Manya (January 21, 2007). "Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.: Pastor inspires Obama's 'audacity'". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on March 19, 2008. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
- ^ "Jeremiah A Wright Jr". Corinthian Baptist Church website. Retrieved April 2, 2008.
- ^ "Pastor". Trinity United Church of Christ website. Archived from the original on March 29, 2008. Retrieved April 2, 2008.
- ^ "Pastoral Staff". Trinity United Church of Christ website. Archived from the original on April 1, 2008. Retrieved April 2, 2008.
- ^ Ramirez, Margaret (February 11, 2008). "Barack Obama spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., preaches last sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved April 4, 2008.
- OCLC 42508237. June 21, 1987. p. 4.
Ruth, Daniel (June 16, 1987). "Chicago minister exalts 'Faith'" (paid archive). Chicago Sun-Times. p. 50.
McBride, James (June 16, 1987). "On leaving the ghetto" (paid archive). The Washington Post. p. F3.
"'Sunday morning worship America's most segregated hour'". Post-Tribune - ^ "Shows". TV One Online. Retrieved April 2, 2008.
- ^ Speller, Julia Michelle (1996). Unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian: One congregation's quest for meaning and belonging (PhD thesis). The University of Chicago. pp. 5–19.
- ^ a b c d Nelson, Hart M.; Anne Kusener Nelson (1975). Black Church in the 1960s. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. p. 74. B000H1VXOY. Cited in Speller (1996) pp. 8–9
- ^ Lincoln, C. Eric and Lawrence H. Mamiya (1990) The Black Church in the African American Experience, Duke University Press, Durham, p. 12-15. Cited in Speller (1996) pp. 11–12.
- ^ Lincoln, C. Eric and Lawrence H. Mamiya (1990) The Black Church in the African American Experience, Duke University Press, Durham, p. 11. Cited in Speller (1996) pp. 8–9.
- ^ Du Bois. W. E. B. "Strivings of the Negro People." Atlantic Monthly, 80 (1897), p. 194-198. Available online.
Sources
- This article is based on the article "Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, the Real Story—Without all the Bias and Political Hype" by Stephen Ewen, available at http://knol.google.com/k/stephen-ewen/trinity-united-church-of-christ-chicago/, and is licensed under the Creative Common Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported and GNU Free Documentation License. Attribution on face of article is required.
41°43′19″N 87°38′03″W / 41.721928°N 87.634227°W