[From The Church Next Door: Local Christians Face America’s New Religious Diversity, draft manuscript by Dr. Paul D. Numrich. Please do not quote or cite without author’s permission.]

Chapter 9: Solidarity in the African-American Experience: Churches and the Nation of Islam

[figure approx. here: photo of Million Man March, courtesy Rev. James Demus]

On October 16, 1995, the historic Million Man March drew African-American men to the nation’s capital “in the spirit of atonement to themselves, their families, their communities and their people, seeking forgiveness and reconciliation, and offering their lives in acceptance of their responsibility to uplift and advance themselves and their people.” This description of the motivation for the Million Man March comes from The Final Call, the official news publication of the Nation of Islam, reflecting on the March’s eighth anniversary in 2003.

The idea of the Million Man March originated with Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, but, as Minister Farrakhan himself points out, Christian participation was vital and significant. More than one-third of the 82 dignitaries at the March were Christian leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Joseph Lowery, Fr. George Clements, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. A sample survey of attendees found Baptists to be the largest religious group at 38 percent, whereas less than 10 percent were Muslims. In Chicago and other cities across the country, African-American pastors and church leaders worked hand-in-hand with the Nation of Islam in organizing support for the March.

Why? Why did these Christians join forces with the Nation of Islam, a group that has drawn African-American converts away from churches since its founding under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in Chicago in the 1930s? Why, given the controversial nature of the Nation and Minister Farrakhan, who preaches racial separatism and radical politics, and whose version of Islam is considered unorthodox by mainstream Muslims, would Christian pastors want to associate with this group (see Chapter 8 for a discussion of a mainstream African-American Islamic group)? Why, given their differences in religious truth claims, did African-American Christians and Muslims unite for the Million Man March?

For answers to these and other questions, we interviewed Rev. Dr. Hycel B. Taylor II, who considers Minister Farrakhan a personal friend as well as a fellow clergyperson. Dr. Taylor had just returned from a Washington gathering of African-American leaders, including Minister Farrakhan, in November of 2003, a meeting that sought to rekindle the spirit of the Million Man March and to consider further action.

Emphasizing internal religious differences dis-empowers the African-American community, explained Dr. Taylor, a community oppressed since slave times. Cooperative ventures like the Million Man March “have not so much to do with our religious differences. In fact, it had more to do with what I’m arguing in my own book—how do we transcend those differences so we can become a formidable force? . . . We are unwittingly divisive along the lines of, ‘You’re a black Muslim,’ or ‘You’re a black Baptist,’ or ‘You’re a black Christian,’ or ‘You’re a black Hebrew,’ or whatever.” At the deepest level of communal experience, Dr. Taylor argued, African Americans share “a common fight” and “a common sense of suffering,” in the face of which religious distinctions tend to “melt away.”

Dr. Taylor’s book, The African-American Revolt of the Spirit, presents his “theology of the black experience,” which he has developed over many years of pastoring, seminary teaching, and social activism. Dr. Taylor came to Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois in 1969, following his own seminary education at Vanderbilt University. He established the Church and the Black Experience program at Garrett, which he directed until his departure in 1985. Dr. Taylor was appointed senior pastor of Evanston’s Second Baptist Church in 1972, a congregation which, in his 30-year tenure, he molded into what one sociologist describes as “one of the most socially and progressively active African-American Baptist churches in the Midwest.” As Dr. Taylor told the sociologist, Paul Tillich and other existentialist theologians that he studied in seminary taught him that theology derives from human existence, not from doctrines. As he told us, his relationship with the Nation of Islam grew out of “the common reality that we are all black, and that we all have the same problems in this racist society.” Solidarity in the African-American experience impelled Dr. Taylor in 1985, when he was president of Operation PUSH, Rev. Jesse Jackson’s social action organization, to support Minister Louis Farrakhan in the face of widespread criticism of Farrakhan’s views of Judaism. He used that controversy as a teachable moment for his congregation, especially for members uninformed about Islam.

Minister Louis Farrakhan on Dr. Hycel B. Taylor and the Million Man March:

There are times in history where God intervenes in the affairs of men and chooses among his servants those to whom he speaks in a very special way. Two years ago, the Reverend Dr. Hycel B. Taylor II shared his pulpit with me at his church in Evanston, and then came and spoke at Mosque Maryam. And at that time the Reverend Dr. Hycel B. Taylor II spoke of a day when there would be concentration on Almighty God. I sat there and listened to Dr. Hycel B. Taylor II and I am sure that his words washed my brain and my soul. I never knew that two years after I heard him speak that I would be involved in a day such as he spoke.

[Speech at Operation PUSH, Chicago, October 14, 1995, two days before the Million Man March; The African-American Revolt of the Spirit, Hycel B. Taylor II]

Elaborating his point about the experiential foundation of black theology, Dr. Taylor said he rejects the notion that Christian-Muslim solidarity in the African-American community can be understood as a response to growing religious diversity. Framed in this way, “diversity” is a scholarly issue, but even more precisely, a white issue, he argued. The dominant social group in a society considers diversity important, especially those who wish to include minorities in some paternalistic project or another. How shall we respond to the religious diversity around us?—that is a question framed by the majority. It presupposes that the majority has the option—actually, the power—to include or exclude other groups at their whim, an option unavailable to minorities. For African Americans of all religious identities, the issue is far more practical, having to do with survival and solutions: What challenges confront our community and how can the religions of our community respond effectively? African-American Christians who convert to Islam, Dr. Taylor suggested, have not engaged in an academic, comparative analysis of the truth claims of each religion, but rather seek individual and social transformation, which they found lacking in Christianity.

When we interviewed Dr. Taylor, he was the senior pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago’s Bronzeville area, whose history includes famed music director Thomas A. Dorsey, considered by many to be the father of American gospel music. A representative of the Nation of Islam participated in Dr. Taylor’s installation in 2002, as did a Jewish rabbi. Nation members attended Pilgrim Baptist and Dr. Taylor participated in programs at the Nation’s main center, Mosque Maryam, on Chicago’s South Side, as he had for years. Dr. Taylor’s daughter, Rev. Chandra Taylor-Smith, assisted him in pastoring Pilgrim Baptist Church. A Harvard Divinity School graduate, Rev. Taylor-Smith agreed with her father’s assessment of the role played by the African-American experience in Christian-Muslim relationships. “That shared experience is so important—all of us experience racism in this country,” she told us. She also pointed out that a significant line of scholarship maintains, like her father, that most African-American converts to the Nation of Islam have joined “because they felt like Christians couldn’t help them address some of these issues [of racism].”

Rev. Taylor-Smith has been exposed to many of the world’s religions, especially in her studies at Harvard. She has never felt the need to convert to any of those religions herself, nor has she felt called to convert others to Christianity. At a Chicago-area, denominationally based college where she once taught, the faculty engaged in an intense examination of “what it means to be evangelical and go out and try to transform people.” “That has not been my cross to bear,” she explained to us. A guiding biblical text for her and her siblings, taught them by their father, has been Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” “That means everything is God’s. That doesn’t mean it’s just Christian. He also taught us that, as Christians, wherever you go, don’t worry about trying to change anybody. They’ll do that if they see the light that shines in you, but also the light that is in them.”

Rev. Taylor-Smith described a memorable encounter she had with a student from India who attends the Illinois Institute of Technology, located near Pilgrim Baptist Church. The woman came up to her in the neighborhood grocery store, mentioning Rev. Taylor-Smith’s sermon the previous Sunday during Pilgrim’s celebration of women’s month. “What you said meant so much to me,” the woman offered, although Rev. Taylor-Smith had not even been aware of her presence at the service. “I said, ‘Are you a Christian?’ She said, ‘No, but I believe that God touches us all.’ She espoused a very embracing, ecumenical, transcending kind of theology, if you will. So I invited her back for the Christmas service. And she came, and she testified . . . about the spirit and love of God, and everybody coming together.”

Rev. Taylor-Smith was pleased that this non-Christian woman felt welcome in Pilgrim Baptist Church, which she continued to attend at the time of our interview. In their encounter, also, shared experience counted more than differing religious identities, in this case the experience of being touched by what both women considered a divine spirit. Rev. Taylor-Smith was more than a little taken by the fact that the Indian woman’s given name was the same as her own, Chandra. When her father heard of their encounter in the grocery store, he suggested that the Indian woman might have been an angel.

Rev. James L. Demus III has been senior pastor of Park Manor Christian Church, a Disciples of Christ congregation located a few blocks from the Nation of Islam’s Mosque Maryam, since 1985. Members of both congregations live together in the neighborhood, sharing their daily lives and their deep concerns for the African-American community. Rev. Demus also agrees that shared experience, not abstract notions of comparative religion or interfaith dialogue, sets the African-American religious agenda. “What the issue is,” Rev. Demus told us, is what brings his members to him, asking the church to address the issues affecting—or afflicting—their community.

That is how he and Park Manor Church got involved with the Million Man March in 1995, as Rev. Demus explained on a PBS news program just days before the March. The partnership began at “the inquiry and the insistence” of a church member who asked, “Rev. Demus, are we going to do anything with this Million Man March?” The question was not framed as, “Rev. Demus, what is Islam and how should Christians respond to it?” Rather, this church member was responding to the Nation of Islam’s call for a national gathering to spotlight issues surrounding African-American men. As Rev. Demus recounted, the man explained, simply, “This march is being called, and I basically think that I need to go.”

Rev. Demus continued the story for us. Shortly after this conversation, he received a letter inviting him to Minister Louis Farrakhan’s home in Chicago to discuss organizing local participation in the Million Man March. Rev. Demus and 16 other African-American pastors met that evening with Minister Farrakhan, enjoying a fine, health conscious Nation of Islam meal and violin music performed by their talented host. When the discussion turned to the matter at hand, Rev. Demus, new to the group, looked around and asked where the rest of the pastors were. How could a mere 16 pastors accomplish the task, especially with the March now only 10 weeks away?

The other pastors replied that, although planning had been going on for the past year, with invitations sent to many pastors, only these few showed interest. Rev. Demus was frank: “With all due respect, Minister Farrakhan, I think I know why they aren’t coming,” he said, proceeding to explain why meeting at Minister Farrakhan’s home instead of one of the churches might not appeal to many pastors, and why the prominent display of Minister Farrakhan’s picture on publicity for the March might give the impression that this was a personal project lacking community-wide support.

Out of this exchange, the group decided to hold the next meeting at Rev. Demus’ church. Now, 200 pastors and other Christian leaders showed up. The 200 swelled to 700 the following meeting, and effective organizing for the March commenced, with Park Manor Christian Church as the hub. When church members began to notice all the activity and the large Nation of Islam presence at their church, they questioned Rev. Demus, some unsure of what the Nation represented. Rev. Demus, like Dr. Hycel Taylor with his church, took the opportunity as a teachable moment, offering study groups on Islam, focusing especially on the Abrahamic roots it shares with Christianity and Judaism. Again, this inquiry arose out of practical circumstances rather than theoretical inquisitiveness.

A major organizational task for pastors in Chicago and around the country was to provide buses for participants of the Million Man March. One estimate had as many as 200 buses coming from Chicago. One of those buses included more than 30 homeless men from Matthew House, a Christian-based shelter on Chicago’s South Side directed by Rev. Sanja Stinson, a woman minister whose husband, a deacon at their church, was also on the bus. Matthew House serves both Christian and Muslim clients who took the initiative to participate in the March. “Basically, the men organized it themselves,” Rev. Stinson said. “They saw it, they wanted to get involved, they needed the support, they needed the guidance. We supported it.”

Rev. Stinson downplayed the importance of doctrinal differences between the Nation of Islam and her own Christian faith in this joint effort. “We were saying, ‘We’re not joining the Nation of Islam, there’s some belief factors that we don’t believe in.’ But the mission of this particular venture was something that we all could collaborate together and agree together on.” She calls this “an ecumenical approach,” one that sets aside religious distinctions in order to accomplish common social goals. In her mind, the events of September 11, 2001 marked another instance of the necessity for such collaboration: “9/11 was a time where everyone needed to come together, regardless of religious background.” For Christians, Rev. Stinson believes, 9/11 called to mind the importance of loving one’s enemies and showing forgiveness to one’s attackers. Since 9/11, she sees growing evidence of the “ecumenical approach” among the various religious groups represented in the African-American community: “I think that we’re leading in that direction. I really see more religions coming together than any time, to work out issues with the neighborhood and the community. I’ve seen them put their religions on the back burner and say, ‘Let’s come to the table.’”
The year following the Million Man March, Rev. James Demus published his views on what he calls the “encounter” of African-American Christians and Muslims in The Christian Ministry magazine. “The Christian and Muslim faithful of our congregations have joined efforts over a number of projects in our community,” he wrote, including voting, prisons, drugs, mentoring, and businesses, in addition to the Million Man March. “How do I deal with the theological differences between Christianity and the Nation of Islam? Our differences rarely come up unless we are asked to be on opposing sides for a television show.” Within the African-American community, Islam is not in opposition to Christianity. There is a more dangerous opposition to both Muslims and Christians, as Rev. Demus continued: “Within the African-American community, the issue is not the Nation of Islam versus Christianity, but religion versus the lure of the streets. . . . We will continue to cooperate with our Muslim neighbors on projects that are mutually beneficial to our communities and to encourage one another in acts of good will and faith. . . . Our common concern has led our congregations to put aside differences in faith and to work together.”

As intimated throughout this chapter, not everyone in the African-American Christian community thinks that differences in religious truth claims between Christianity and Islam should be put aside or on the back burner in order to take up common social causes. The concern expressed by some church members over their pastors’ involvement with the Nation of Islam included questions about the fundamental compatibility of Christian and Muslim belief systems. Rev. James Demus spoke of tensions in his own family over one member who became a Black Hebrew Israelite, in the process rejecting his own given name from the New Testament. Dr. Hycel Taylor noted that there are a few Christian groups in the African-American community, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, who seek to convert Muslims. Moreover, he sees the rise of a new religious conservatism among younger African Americans, perhaps influenced by the larger white Christian conservative movement, espousing what Dr. Taylor calls a “Jesiology” in which there is only one way to salvation.

Even so, the powerful, shared experience of minority status in American society has created a significant measure of solidarity among African-American groups that is difficult for majority members of society to understand. Other labels, even religious ones, seem far less important than the label imposed by racism.

Principle 1 of the “Ten Principles of Spiritual Empowerment for African-American Social/Political Movement,” by Dr. Hycel B. Taylor:

You shall let nothing separate you from God, yourself as an individual, or your African-American brothers and sisters as a racially designated and homogeneous social group among other racially designated and homogenous social groups within the human family. This is your loving and sacred obligation. To do this does not suggest racial superiority or reverse racism. Let no one impose that idea on you. Rather, to love and preserve the uniqueness of your race as one among other racial subspecies of the human race is to celebrate the beauty and dignity of God’s creative diversity within the human family.

[The African-American Revolt of the Spirit, Hycel B. Taylor II]

For More Information

Helpful surveys of religion in the African-American community include C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African-American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990), Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), and Larry G. Murphy, ed., Down by the Riverside: Readings in African American Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2000). Notable works by African-American Christian theologians include James H. Cone, Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968-1998 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999) and the video by Cornel West, “African-American Theology in Today’s Society” (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Public Affairs Video Archives, 1999).

The Final Call, the official news publication of the Nation of Islam, is available in electronic format at www.finalcall.com and in printed format by subscription from Final Call Inc., 734 W. 79^th Street, Chicago, IL, 60620-2424. Mosque Maryam, the Nation’s main center, is located at 7351 S. Stoney Island Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60649, phone 773-324-6000, Web site www.noi.org/maryam.html.

Rev. Dr. Hycel B. Taylor II’s book is entitled The African-American Revolt of the Spirit (Chicago: Faith and Freedom Publishing Company, 1996). Dr. Taylor’s 30-year social ministry at Second Baptist Church in Evanston, Illinois (1972-2002) is examined by sociologist Shayne Lee in the article, “The Church of Faith and Freedom: African-American Baptists and Social Action,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42,1 (March 2003): 31-41. The phrase, “Faith and Freedom,” derives from white Christian theologian Schubert M. Ogden’s book, Faith and Freedom: Toward a Theology of Liberation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), required reading in Dr. Taylor’s Church and the Black Experience program at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (1969-1985).

Rev. James L. Demus III’s church, Park Manor Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), is located at 600 E. 73^rd Street, Chicago, IL 60615, phone 773-483-2115, Web site www.parkmanorchristianchurch.com. A transcript of the PBS story on the Million Man March in which Rev. Demus was quoted can be accessed at www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/race_relations/race_relations_10-13a.html. Rev. Demus’ article, “Black Christians Encounter Black Muslims,” appeared in the November-December 1996 issue of The Christian Ministry magazine, pp. 18-19, available from the Christian Century Foundation, 104 S. Michigan Avenue, Suite 700, Chicago, IL 60603-5901, phone 312-263-7510.

Matthew House emergency shelter agency is located at 3610 S. Giles Avenue, Chicago, IL 60653, phone 773-536-3661.

For Discussion

1. How important are the truth claims of religions, such as claims about God, divine revelation, the human condition, and eternal salvation? Some Christians see truth claims as the most important matter in relating to the world’s religions, whereas other Christians place matters like social cooperation ahead of religious truth claims. Where do you stand?
2. If there is a “theology of the black experience,” is there also a “theology of the white experience,” a “theology of the Latino experience,” a “theology of the Asian experience,” and so on? In other words, does a group’s social context and history shape its expression of Christianity, as well as its understanding of God and God’s activity in the world? Is there a “theology of the human experience” shared by all groups, or are the differences between the experiences of the various racial and ethnic groups more powerful than their common humanity?
3. Do you think that the rise of a new religious conservatism among younger African-American Christians, mentioned by Dr. Hycel Taylor, indicates a major shift in the community? Will “Jesiology,” in which there is only one way to salvation, begin to overshadow inter-religious cooperation that downplays differences in religious truth claims? What does it say about the experience of young African-American conservatives if they seem to share so much with the larger white conservative Christian movement?
4. Peruse the Web sites of Park Manor Christian Church (www.parkmanorchristianchurch.com) and Mosque Maryam (www.noi.org/maryam.html), comparing and contrasting them along two lines: 1) their religious truth claims, and 2) their response to the African-American experience. Then compare and contrast these Web sites to your own religious truth claims and experience.
5. Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam are well known and controversial. What did you know about them before this reading chapter? What do you think about them now? What do you think about the Christian pastors and churches who collaborate with Minister Farrakhan and the Nation on community concerns? Would your pastor and your church do likewise, even in principle if it weren’t practical to do so?

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