Azizi,

We so often come a cropper on communication; I am not hopeful any of the following will come across as I intend. But I can report on the "Black Church," somewhat, as it exists in the Episcopal Church.

My "basis" of experience:

I have attended three, have friends in a fourth I may get to visit next week, and have friends I will see again this week who have been to our "all-white" mountain-town/rural parish as co-leaders of a weekend event. Our current Diocesan Bishop is AA; recently he was Dean of the Washington National Cathedral. Before that he was Dean of a theological seminary. He is prominent in the Union of Black Episcopalians. He will be at Obama's inauguration. He has at least one ordained family member I know of (in another denom.) I have met once. I met many of his extended family members socially at the time of his consecration.

Then there is the (AA) newly-ordained priest friend of my husband and I; we also had some small part in his process from the Baptist ministry and into the priesthood in our denomination; like our Bishop he has had an interesting journey through denominations, and his wife, I believe, is an ordained Baptist.

We've lost touch with the folks we knew in a large, affluent Black parish in Detroit....

There were AA folk in attendance at the even-more-conservative (non-ECUSA) parish I visited once in LA....

There have been, from time to time, AA students from downstate who have attended the local uni the next town over, who have been to that town's parish church, and who have found themselves at home in the service.

... There are also the AA spouses of these all these priests, bishop, and lay leaders....

My husband, in Chicago, served under an AA bishop and knew him well.


I would venture to say that of the folks above with whom we are still in contact, these are people who don't avoid Mudcat because it's low on AA members, but because they lack time to mess into a busy music website. I consider them my friends (we have so few, even close to home, who we ever get to see often in person), and I hope they consider me (us) theirs. So, like the old saw says, some of my best friends are-- Black! :~)


To the extent that I can, I will tell you what I know they would report to you:

Throughout the US Episcopal Church ("ECUSA"), communion is communion is communion, and is the same as in every other ECUSA parish-- diverse as to theological slant on the basic Anglican theology, but liturgically exactly the same. Communion is communion, and liturgy is liturgy.

The prayer book we all use is online and one can read the communion rite there for a complete description of the priest's action, the people's action, and the options available. At the ECUSA website I am sure there is great theological description of the meaning of it all.

At the Church Hymnal Website one can learn about the music resources available to all parishes that are used during communion. Our (all-white) parish has used "the" "Black" hymnal published there, and I have also seen the mainstream 1982 Hymnal at all of the above parishes, which contains largely European hymnody adapted for the US. There is a new hymnal some parishes use that blends all these strains with "praise" music.

In the ECUSA, there are theological strains (at what are called "renewal" parishes) that would have familiar elements to Pentcostal worship, but I have never attened these and I do not know their AA participation. Regardless, the music, communion, and liturgy will be the same as already described. (There may be more extemporaneous verbal expression, dance, preaching, etc.; but this will be theologically based, not color-based.)


From my observations, there are still hats on some AA ladies' heads in Episcopal church.... about as many as there are on blonde, white heads in our old-fashioned, affluent parish. I did see a few more in Detroit. (I wore a good one, myself, when we were there interviewing, but it was more due to their anticipated social standing than their "color.")

And I will see, when I next see each and every one of them, if they have any contributions to make to this thread. But they are going to think it silly of me to ask them, I am sure of that. I copied all of the foregoing (not this post yet) onto my laptop so I could take it on my trip along with the anti-racism material I am taking for another purpose. (I'll put this post on it, too, if I hook up the laptop again.)


And I know it's your option to agree to disagree with me anytime, but know this-- I will NEVER catalog my "Black Props" again, in an effort to simply share with you what I know! I offer it here in the hope that you will change your assessment of my credibility so we can get on with doing the important things we do in this crazy world.

I do actually know one or two things. Maybe not too many more than that, but 1 or 2.

An old friend of mine once offered to me that anytime a person didn't want to deal with me on color matters (his terms), I could refer them to him for a reference. At the time he presided over the NAACP unit he'd founded in the little suburban town where I lived and worked. I moved, and since then he's also a little harder to find-- But he was Google-able last time I looked. Dr. Jaslin Salmon. If you run into him in your research-- gosh, tell him I still want to read his manuscript, and hear his stories, OK?

~Susan