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Debates about women’s roles in the church are back in the headlines, but a lot of them leave out a large and important group of American Christians: the Black church.
Here, discussions about the place of women in Christianity don’t happen on white evangelicals’ terms. Black churches don’t use the same language or framework as white evangelicals, particularly concerning gender roles; the terminology of “egalitarian versus complementarian” is rarely used. Focusing only on how this discussion happens in predominantly white denominations misses the insights that the Black church can bring to conversations about women in the church.
When I speak of the Black church, I mean the faith body of African American Protestant congregations across multiple denominations. We call ourselves the Black church not just because of the color of our skin but because of the institution’s unique historical and cultural significance within the African American community. “In the centuries since its birth in the time of slavery, the Black Church has stood as the foundation of Black religious, political, economic, and social life,” wrote Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Black women have always been vital to the Black church, making up 60 percent of the average congregation, according to the Pew Research Center. And though the Black church has historically sought equality for Black people in society at large, Black women have often been marginalized within the institution and kept out of leadership roles.
In recent decades, however, the roles of women in the Black church have started changing, even as denominational differences persist. I reached out to leaders in Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME), and Church of God in Christ (COGIC) congregations to get a sense of where they land in the ongoing discussion around Black women’s leadership in the church.
Black Baptist churches are a broad group, affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, ...