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Episode #1717
Church Folk
Holloway: Jay Holloway,
host
Bowen: Michele Andrea Bowen
Walker: Reverend Dr. Thomas L. Walker
Turner: Reverend Dr. William C. Turner, Jr.
Holloway: We've
all heard talk about church folk. Perhaps you are one of those
people. Tonight we will discuss Church Folk, the fictional
book, and some of the realities, next on Black Issues Forum.
You stay tuned.
Voiceover: This program
was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV from viewers
like you. Thank you.
[THEME MUSIC]
Holloway: Good evening and
welcome to Black Issues Forum, I'm Jay Holloway. Tonight
we'll examine the traditions and the new roles within the
black church culture that we love and help us progress in
the community. And we'll talk about those issues that could
be strengthened, that may be holding us back somewhat. Tonight
we welcome three church folk, Reverend Dr. Thomas L. Walker
of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Rocky Mount. His church has
TV and radio ministries, daycare, ministerial training and
several outreach programs. He is also the author of the book
Brother to Brother: You don't have to die with prostate
cancer. This is also a must-read for women who love their
men.
Also tonight Michele Andrea Bowen,
author of the novel Church Folk, we are going to be
talking about that tonight. This is her first novel, she is
a social worker. She has worked with Marita Golden and the
Richard Wright and Zora Neal Hurston Foundation. She is a
native of St. Louis but has been in our fair state of North
Carolina for about 20 years.
And also Reverend Dr. William
C. Turner, Jr. He teaches homiletics at Duke University and
is the pastor at Mount Level Missionary Baptist Church in
Durham.
Thanks all of you church folk
for being with us this evening. Michele, thank you for being
with us. We are here really to use your novel, this book Church
Folk, to kind of launch into a discussion about church
folk and the role they play in our community. Tell us what
inspired you to write this book and give us the setting.
Bowen: My friends told
me to write this book! They told me that I was one of the
few people they knew who had the insight to bring it to life,
and also I have a really kind of mischievous sense of humor,
so they thought that I would be able to hit some home.
Holloway: You mean
a lot of humor goes on in the black church?
Bowen: Yes, and a lot
of humor goes on in this book, and they thought it would be
a good story. And there are very few stories about "The
Black Church" in terms of fictionalized stories in the
book store, and so when I was writing it I would look through
the shelves to see what was going on, and not a lot of stories
about black working-class folk.
Holloway: You would
think that something like this would have been out, so much,
I mean, as much that goes on in our community, the role that
it plays, so it's taken this long. Well, congratulations.
Bowen: Thank you.
Holloway: Give us the
story line briefly before we get into our discussion.
Bowen: It's three stories
in one, really, and I didn't intend for it to be that way,
I just started writing the story. It's about church politics,
and I always asked the question what happens when good preachers
let bad preachers run amok, and how far would bad preachers
go if you don't stop them, and what is the impact upon the
church, and also upon the people in the church. It's also
a love story between a pastor and his wife. I wanted to flesh
that out and show that relationship, and it's also about black.the
inner corridors of black church life in the '60s. A lot of
people who were younger remember about the church dinners,
the music, the fellowship, and I guess the best way I could
describe Church Folk is the kitchen table stories that
people have told over the years about what's happening in
church, and I always say when I do a reading that this book
is like the Sunday that you decide not to go to church, for
whatever reason, and the phone rings after church and says,
"You missed it."
Holloway: You missed
this!
Bowen: But they're
not talking about the sermon. That's Church Folk.
Holloway: What went
on!
[CHUCKLES]
Holloway: Now let's
talk to Reverend Turner. Now, you happen to be Michele's pastor,
but this is fiction, so it's not about Mt. Level, it's not
about Durham.
Bowen: No!
Holloway: This is fiction,
and we talked about that perhaps this is one of the best ways
to talk about church folk is in the fiction. And we are not
talking about any one specific church or pastor, right? What's
been your reaction, because you've read her book?
Turner: Yeah, I found
the book fascinating. My first reaction was, "How in
the world does she know so much?" about first, the Civil
Rights Movement, but also about connectional church politics,
because that is the dimension that jumped out at me when I
read it. It's about local churches, but also about the way
churches are connected and the dynamics that go on in that
regard. It's true to life, it's true to life. It shows the
black church in at least two important phases. One phase is
when the church is about its business, the business that I
would say is given by the founder of the church. The church
as a divine institution, it has a role to play, a job to do
in the world. And then, the way she put it, "bad preachers
gone amok." Well, it's about reality, the kinds of problems
that occur in the real world. But the triumph as I see it
in the book is that the church has the power to redeem itself,
and the prophetic voice is kept alive.
Holloway: You mentioned
a lot. Now, Reverend Walker, you and I haven't had a chance
to read this book in detail like they have, but you know about
church life, and you've heard them describe this. Do you care
to react to that? Especially this last thing about bad preachers
gone amok, what's your reaction to that?
Walker: Well, first
of all I want to mention what she said about politics, because
one of the things that was said in the '60s when we were trying
to get the church to get out and be involved with social issues
is that, "we don't have politics in the church."
[CHUCKLING] The truth of the matter is that there are more
politics in the average church than there are in the White
House! And of course the issue dealing with the bad preachers
is clearly one that a lot of people have to be concerned about
in the sense that it's a reality, but then the other reality
is that, I think like any other profession, there are more
good preachers than there are bad.
Turner: Right.
Holloway: So when we
talk about politics, people sometimes associate politics with
negative and lying and that kind of thing. How do you make
that a lively story that people can laugh about?
Bowen: Well, I looked
at it neutrally, in terms that there is the good side of the
politics in the book and then there is the bad side. And there
are really wonderful preachers. I think when people see it
they will pick up on the bad preachers, but as you get into
the book the good preachers really are wonderful people in
terms of their ministry, and also how they maneuver the politics
to deal with the preachers whose behavior definitely has to
be addressed by the time you get to the end of the book. So
I didn't see politics as being bad, but I saw that it was
the vehicle of how the two sides would operate, and then how
they come together, even collide. There is a section at the
end of the book where one of the "bad" preachers
who masterminds all the things that happens, when his adversaries,
who are technically the "good" preachers or the
protagonists, find out what is happening, he kind of like
chuckles to himself, because he knew their strengths and knew
that once they found out what happened that they were smart
enough and spiritual enough and bold enough to use the politics
to their advantage.
Holloway: So the good
wins out.
Bowen: Yes, it does.
Turner: Can I make
one more comment?
Holloway: Please.
Turner: Right along
the line of what she was just talking about, because the other
thing that is so beautiful here, in the book, is how these
average, ordinary, sincere, believing Christians actually
give courage to the good preachers. The main character is
young, but he is supported and sustained and strengthened
by these ordinary, every day, average, praying folk to stand
up and do what is right.
Holloway: Reverend
Walker, is that, let's jump to reality. Do you see that going
on today in the black church? And even in your church if you
want to talk about it.
Walker: Okay. Yes,
it's still a reality, but the point that it makes about how.church
folk, like I did a message one time, "These Folk Called
Christians," church folk are unique within themselves
in a very positive sense, and sometimes in a negative sense.
In a positive sense, like Dr. Turner just said, their tolerance
and their ability to really.they almost, like they can read
your mind sometimes, they have, it's a spirit within the church.
Holloway: And that
motivates you as a pastor.
Walker: It motivates
you, yeah. They can sense when you are down, they can sense
when you.sometimes when they.for instance, sometimes in their,
one very humorous thing in their response, in the black church's
call and response, you know, you can get off, or you can do
good and they say, "Amen, Reverend." And then you
can go off and they say, "Come on up, Reverend, watch
yourself." You know.
Holloway: It keeps
you on target.
Walker: Yeah, it keeps
you on target.
Holloway: What about,
Michele, some of the examples of the black church during this
time of the '60s Civil Rights. Were there some examples specifically
in your book where some of the church folk helped and held
these church leaders accountable to really kind of spark the
Civil Rights Movement?
Bowen: I put my people
kind of in the background, because I wanted to show that there
were foot soldiers in the movement, and also because in the
story I wanted to tell what was actually happening in their
church and didn't want to have the movement overshadow their
story. So what I did is one of the protagonist bishops is
very active in the movement, and you get an indication that
he has had contact with Dr. King, you know, fictionalized,
and the people in the Southern Christian Leadership organization.
But the people who you see the most, they are, the narrator
indicates that they cook the food for the marchers, and they
are the ones where people spend the night at their homes,
and so they are real active in supporting the people who are
going to March, go down to Mississippi and do all the hard
work. So I wanted to say that the movement could not have
occurred had you not had these regular people behind the scenes
whose names we will never know. And that would include pastors
and deacons and even some bishops who you wouldn't know who
they were, because they were the support system for the people
who you did see.
Holloway: One of the
things that, as you jump from the '60s and jump 40 years forward
now and say we had those problems and people were unified
around this one issue, and the black church played a major
role, as you talked about in your book. But we still have
a lot of problems in the black community, in education, in
income, and wealth, and a lot of these other things. Is there
any unifying effort now in the collective black church and
church leaders to rally black folk or church folk around these
issues, either one of our pastors?
Walker: What I think
is the unfortunate thing, however, is that the cost of some
of the things you point out from her book, there has been
an effort in the church community to deal with that through
segregation. And as a result you have a variety of churches
that get a niche and they work on that niche and are critical
of other bodies. And so as a result when you get ready to
move and are a moving force to make a difference in the community
at large, you've got people who used to be grouped up in one
setting, regardless of all of its faults, but yet we were
there all on common ground, and I think we were better equipped
to deal with social problems than we are now.
Holloway: So we don't
see that monolithic or church unity amongst churches and folks
now. Do you see any rally point for that to happen again?
Turner: Well, I think
what you have there in the civil rights movement and the response
of the church is sort of like a flashpoint, a catalyst. The
issue of race was monolithic, especially in the South, and
it cut right across class lines, economic lines, it didn't
make any difference what your age, your income. You see, in
that period of time race as it was configured within the American
South, and American culture as a whole, was the one issue
against which the church was reacting. Now, there were other
ways in which the church was addressing problems and issues,
but this came to be the overarching one. In this day and time
I don't know that there is a single issue. It's more a matter
that communities have to look around and be sensitive in the
location, in that particular and concrete historic setting,
and fashion a way of addressing human needs that is suited
to that location. What you do not see as readily as you saw,
say, the SCLC, you do not see the way in which church bodies
do some of this work in their own connectional venue, or through
their own apparatus, whether it be a convention, an association,
a congregation, an assembly, no matter what it calls its body,
there are still some structures by which connected churches
still do this work. And local churches are pushed by the very
nature of the problems, among the members and in the communities
where they exist.
Holloway: We are talking
about Church Folk here. We've got Michele Bowen here,
the author, and two pastors here. Tell us a little more, Michele,
some of the stories. There are some antagonists in there too
that you mentioned that are not always supportive but critical
sometimes. Describe that situation.
Bowen: Well, what happens,
the primary antagonists are basically three preachers, and
they have.
Holloway: Preachers,
oh-other preachers?
Bowen: Right. One bishop
and two pastors. And what I did when creating those characters
was looked at a lot of the problems and issues that church
folk, the lay people talk about as they saw it when they went
to conferences or things that were happening in a church.
So I had one pastor who runs around, who really doesn't want
to do his work, his father was a big pastor so this is a legacy,
but they have never been "saved," but they are pastors.
[CHUCKLES] I have another pastor who wants to live the good
life-he does his work-but every church he pastors the money,
they always go in the red and he can't really explain himself
when you look at his material possessions, they always seem
to be better. So these two pastors are kind of floundering
and lost. And then we have one bishop who, there is really
one evil-if you say evil-character in the book who is completely
lost. And when you have someone like that who is in darkness,
they want to spread it and snuff out the light, so they get
two little people who are kind of floundering to kind of come
in with them, but the people who are floundering really don't
know the extent of what is going on with the person who is
masterminding this. And what happens is with this particular
character, he has been doing things for years, but they've
never really dealt with him properly to say, "This is.we
are dealing with good and evil, something is wrong, and we
are not going to continue to let him operate under the banner
of the church, we are going to deal with him to protect our
church." And by them not doing that he just kind of grows
like a fungus and comes up with this scheme basically dealing
with his own issues.
Holloway: Reverend
Walker, are these kind of issues still going on today? You
hear people talking about misuse of money, and preachers messing
with church women and other women, and those are some criticisms.
She brought that out in the book. Today how do-generally speaking-churches
and church leadership hold accountable these bad preachers?
Walker: Okay, all right!
You know, when they began to deal with these kinds of issues
that-I am reminded of another book that was written years
ago, and I sort of tiptoe around a lot of this. There was
a book written by Tommy Perkins called Satan in the Pulpit,
which drew quite a bit of criticism from a lot of the clergy.
So I preface what I have to say by saying this: that like
any industry, any corporation, one can easily look at the
bad and forget about the good. The reality is there are some
of these things going on. It depends on the government, the
way the church is governed, how these ministers are dealt
with, especially in the Baptist church, because you could
line up a hundred Baptist churches that have a hundred different
ways, because they are congregationally ruled. And so some
churches come down real hard on ministers like that, others
are more forgiving and tolerant. Some even seek treatment
for ministers who have problems. Then there are others who
I think go back more to the philosophy of the '60s, a minister
can do something that is not bad. We just had a case similar
to that. He was just serving people and because he did not
do it the way that they wanted it they are terminated. So
there are various ways, there is no set rule.
Holloway: Is there
any difference? A lot of-if you talk about church growth now-since
the '60s the one difference in terms of the black church is
the growth of these mega-churches and these non-traditional,
non-denominational churches. You probably did not touch on
that in the book.
Bowen: No.
Holloway: In the '60s
it wasn't as prevalent.
Bowen: No, I didn't
touch on that. In fact, when I created the Gospel United Church
of America I looked at the churches that I had been a part
of. I grew up AME Zion, and I was AME, I go to a Baptist church
now. My uncle was Holiness. And I kind of took pieces of those
churches and kind of put them in a blender and came up with
the Gospel United Church of America, because I wanted everyone
who went to church to kind of feel a part of this made-up
denomination. The other thing is to tell the story effectively
I needed a hierarchy that could govern other ministers, so
that's why I set bishops and presiding elders and everything
in place in the book. So I didn't even, I wanted to stay historically
accurate, and so it didn't make sense to have a mega-church
in a time period when this church probably fit more into the
fabric of churches at that time as I researched and remembered.
Holloway: Reverend
Turner, do you want to address that? Because that is an issue
today in terms of church growth and how that has compared
to the traditional churches.
Turner: Yeah.. A couple
of comments. First I want to come back to where Reverend Walker
was when he was talking about how churches deal with these
preachers. There is one more piece to that, and that is the
way we deal with each other. And no one will know the redeeming
influences that we have on each other, because when we are
preached to one another, we observe utter confidentiality,
and we do go to each other, and we do make use of one another
as confessors and persons to pray for and strengthen the one
in need. So that is the part that may never come to light,
because it's not supposed to.
Holloway: That's right.
Turner: In other words,
when the priesthood among the clergy operates as it ought
to, it will never be known, so you will know much more about
the bad preacher-because that goes public-than the redeeming
preacher, because it stays confidential, like it's supposed
to be.
Bowen: I want to jump
in here and say that the bad preachers are so outrageous that
that is what everybody remembers when they talk about Church
Folk, they will call each other on the phone-or I get
phone calls, like people from my mother's church-and they
go, "Girl, those preachers were cutting up!" But
there are some really good preachers in Church Folk,
and if it were not for them and lay people who pray for them
and support them, they would not have been able to accomplish-and
I would not have even been able to figure out how to make
the characters accomplish what they did to offset what the
bad preachers did. Reverend Murchison James is a little small
town preacher in Mississippi with a church of no more than
100 people, but his ministry, in terms of how he ministers
to other preachers and to his church is extensive, to the
point where they want him, this country preacher who has a
farm, and the narrator says that he loves to be near the earth
so he can talk to God and ask God why one seed makes a flower
and the other seed makes corn, and about birthing babies,
I mean, he is just a country preacher. But he is so effective
and so spiritual and has such a depth to him that the people
in the church want him to lead their church into the latter
part of the 20th century. So there are wonderful
preachers in here, and they have these real layers in terms
of their intellect, in terms of their spiritual understanding,
in terms of their folksiness, that really endeared the people
who met them in the book to them.
Holloway: So when we
are talking about forgiveness and redemption, which is such
a strong part of the Christian faith, that is I guess how
it empowers itself back to being in the position to help people
and to consequently help the community. Do you want to comment
on that philosophy, Reverend Walker?
Walker: Well, yes.
The redemptive-your question, again, has to do with the.
Holloway: In terms
of that is one of the ways that is so consistent about the
black church or the Christian church, is forgiveness and redemption,
and that consequently helps the church renew its faith in
its leadership to help lead the people in this instance, in
the issues that we have in the community.
Walker: That's right.
Because, see, the church is, as Dr. Turner said earlier, an
agent of the Lord, it is really the body of Christ, and what
he was on earth that's what the church is. And so we ought
to demonstrate these kinds of things as we deal with the realities.
Problems, yes, will exist; offenses will come. But our very
nature teaches us to be forgiving.
Holloway: As we wrap
up I want to get some final comments from you all in terms
of what people can take from this fictional discussion and
take back to their real church lives to help improve our community.
What would you say, Dr. Turner?
Turner: Well, first
I want to come back to the question you asked but I never
got to answer, and that has to do with the mega-churches.
Part of what you see there in the mega-church movement is
a struggle within the church, within the body, to reform itself,
to keep itself relevant, and to reach the needs of real, living
people. There are lots of young people, and even not so young
people, middle-aged people, who don't understand the traditional
structures of the church. Okay. The connectional church, they
are not aware of the mission because they've been on the fringes,
and so what you have within these movements is an attempt
to make the church relevant to its time. I would think that
in the long sweep of things some of these newer, independent
churches are going to begin to look and behave just like the
others. But the hope is that out of this growth and development
and testing and reformation and prophetic movement that the
church will be carried back to her Lord and back to her mission.
Holloway: Well thank
you so much. We've run completely out of time. I want to thank
you so much, and I certainly hope you've enjoyed the program.
Join us on our website for more information on Church Folk
and black issues as well. I'm Jay Holloway, you have a blessed
evening and a good night, and join us each and every Friday
night at 9:30.
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