# The New Negro Church

by

W.E.B. Du Bois

It is painfully true that White Christianity has in the twentieth century been seriously discredited. First, it is faced by the fact of the World War. Here in the twentieth century of the Prince of Peace, the leading nations representing His religion have been murdering, maiming and hurting each other on a scale unprecedented in the history of mankind. Again, into the White Church of Christ race prejudice has crept to such an extent that is is openly recognized and in the United States at least it is considered the natural and normal thing that white and colored people should belong mostly to different organizations and almost entirely to different congregations. Finally in the white church an obvious and open segregation has taken place so that a poor man in some of the great churches of the north would be as great an anomaly as a black man in the Methodist Church South. These facts do not impugn Christianity but they do make terrible comment upon the failure of its white followers.

On the other hand, the colored church of Christ has certain things of which it may rightfully boast. It is a democratic church; a church where the governing power is largely in the hands of the mass of membership, where everybody is courteously welcomed even if the application of a white person might cause astonishment; and where the attempts to organize aristocrat and exclusive congregations has been curiously unsuccessful as compared with the enormous success of the great churches of the people.

This success of the colored Christian church calls, however, for no "Holier than thou" attitude. As colored people we have not yet been

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faced by the kind of temptation that has lead white people astray.
We have no human beings in our power to despise. We have little
wealth to tempt us to aristocracy, and we have so near to us the
example of what prejudice and hatred can do that most of us have been
well warned.

On the other hand, there are many faults and dangers: First of
all, the kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is
not to-day attractive to even fairly intelligent men; we have gotten
into the wide-spread habit of letting preachers talk to us without
giving them any attention because we assume that most of the things
they say are not worth attention.

The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far
too much upon "Hell and Damnation,"--upon an attempt to scare people
into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and
punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply
childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every
wrong deed that men do, the repeated declaration that anything can be
gotten by anyone at any time by prayer. Especially is the colored
church failing by its dogmatic hypocrisy in relation to amusements;-
While church members and nearly all decent people dance and play
cards and go to theatres under certain circumstances, the church con-
tinues to pretend that these things are always absolutely and eternally
wrong. At the same time, it seldom punishes or seeks to punish those
of its members who indulge in them. Lastly, the colored church finds
itself continually in the treadmill of its economic lack of vision:
It builds a church edifice, works hard to pay the mortgage interest,
follows this by a series of tremendous rallies to pay off the principal
and burns the mortgage. By that time the church is old and either
needs repairs or a new church. When the new church is built the same
circle is gone over again.

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In the first of these dangers what must the new Negro church do?
It must make its sermons a regular source of real information. It
must give the people Knowledge. It must inspire them with high i-
deals of good deeds, and not simply entertain them or scare them or
merely yell at them. Especially must the new Negro church take a
consistent stand on amusements. It must discourage excesses and
immorality, but it must cease to condemn every person who dances
under any circumstances, every person who sees a play of Shakespeare
and every person who sits down with his friends for a game of eucre.
It is absolutely impossible to class all dancing, entertainments and
the playing of games with debauchery and lewdness; all attempts to do
this are bound to be flat failures.

Again, the method of recruiting persons to church membership
should be changed. It is not necessary to carry on our present method
of periodical revival with the hiring of professional and loud-mouthed
evangelists and reducing people to a state of frenzy or unconscious-
ness in order to get them into the church. A regular campaign carried
on every month in the year, quietly and seriously among reasonable
people will bring to the aid of the church a much better class of
membership than present methods attract.

Above all, the business activities of the new Negro church
must be more systematic. The same methods that procured and paid
for the church home can buy and pay for homes of the church members.
Buying clubs and co-operative effort can reduce the cost of living
for the church members and for the church neighborhood. More systematic
effort can be made for obtaining employment for colored folk and for
encouraging enterprises that will employ them. The burden of educating
its children even through high school and college should rest upon
every Negro church.

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Above all, the church must take an unbending stand on the matter of character. It seems almost inconceivable that to-day so many churches and ministers and so many good church members actually sneer at good men and good deeds and honest action. They seem to want the world to believe that dipping a man into a pool of water is more important in the sight of God than inducing him to keep his body clean and pay his honest debts and refuse to spread malicious gossip. Clean straightforward character, honest unbending unselfishness must be the product of the Negro church if it is to survive; and this coupled with a helpful business program and a sane attitude toward amusements will characterize the new Negro church.