Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban NeighborhoodLong considered the lifeblood of urban African American neighborhoods, churches are held up as institutions dedicated to serving their surrounding communities. Omar McRoberts's work in Four Corners, however, reveals a very different picture. One of the toughest neighborhoods in Boston, Four Corners also contains twenty-nine churches, mostly storefront congregations, within its square half-mile radius. In McRoberts's hands, this area teaches a startling lesson about the relationship between congregations and neighborhoods that will be of interest to everyone concerned with the revitalization of the inner city. McRoberts finds, for example, that most of the churches in Four Corners are attended and run by people who do not live in the neighborhood but who worship there because of the low overhead. These churches, McRoberts argues, are communities in and of themselves, with little or no attachment to the surrounding area. This disconnect makes the churches less inclined to cooperate with neighborhood revitalization campaigns and less likely to respond to the immediate needs of neighborhood residents. Thus, the faith invested in inner-city churches as beacons of local renewal might be misplaced, and the decision to count on them to administer welfare definitely should be revisited. As the federal government increasingly moves toward delivering social services through faith-based organizations, Streets of Glory must be read for its trenchant revisionist view of how churches actually work in depressed urban areas. |
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Streets of glory: church and community in a Black urban neighborhood
Crítica de los usuarios - Not Available - Book VerdictWith an eye toward evaluating churches as potential administers of social programs in needy communities, this ethnographic study takes a close look at a particular community's churches and their ... Leer comentario completo
Contenido
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 Birth of the Black Religious District | 16 |
Birth of a Contemporary Religious District | 44 |
Particularism and Exilic Consciousness | 61 |
Clergy Confront the Immediate Environment | 81 |
ChurchBased Activism | 100 |
7 Who Is My Neighbor? Religion and Institutional Infrastructure in Four Corners | 122 |
Saving Four Corners? | 137 |
Authors Note | 151 |
Notes | 157 |
165 | |
175 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood Omar M. McRoberts Vista previa limitada - 2005 |
Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood Omar M. McRoberts Sin vista previa disponible - 2003 |
Términos y frases comunes
Action Coalition activism activist African American Apostolic Azusa Baker House Baptist began Black Belt Black churches Black population borhood Bridget’s chapter Christ Church churches in Four clergy Codman Square conflict congregations cultural denomination difficult diverse Dorchester economic elite environment ethnic ethnographic exilic frame fellowship field find first Four Cor Four Corners frame extension gious glossolalia groups Haitian Haitian Creole Holy Ghost Holy Road immigrants Jameson Jehovah’s Witnesses Jude Church lived located Mattapan Methodist migrant churches minister ministry mobility moved neigh neighbor neighborhood networks niche northern organizations orientation particularistic pastor Pentecostal percent Powell preaching priestly programs racial reflected religion religious district religious ecology religious institutions religious particularism residential residents revitalization Roxbury secular served significant social transformation South End Southern Black southern migrants specific spiritual storefront churches Sunday tions urban voluntary associations Warner West Indian White Winspeare worship young youth