Trinity United Church of Christ is a predominantly African-American megachurch with more than 8,500 members. It is located in the Washington Heights community on the South Side of Chicago. It is the largest church affiliated with the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white Christian denomination with roots in Congregationalism, which historically branched from early American Puritanism.Marty, Martin E. "Keeping the Faith at Trinity United Church of Christ". Sightings Available online.
The church's early history coincided with the American civil rights movement, subsequent murder of Martin Luther King Jr., and the tumultuous period that engulfed the civil rights movement after King's death due to intense competition among actors over who would carry King's mantle. During that tumultuous period, an influx of radical black Muslim groups had begun to headquarter in Chicago, and Trinity sought to recontextualize Christianity through black theology in order to counter the influence of radical black Muslim leaders, who taught that it was impossible to be both black and Christian.Nelson, Hart M.; Anne Kusener Nelson (1975). Black Church in the 1960s. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 74. B000H1VXOY
In early 2008, as part of their presidential election coverage, news media outlets and political commentators brought Trinity to national attention when controversial excerpts of sermons by the church's long-time former pastor Jeremiah Wright were broadcast to highlight Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's pastoral relationship with Wright and the church. Obama responded with a speech, A More Perfect Union, which addressed the criticisms and largely alleviated them from popular political criticisms at the time. On 31 May 2008 Obama severed links with the church, over comments by Wright and visiting priest Michael Pfleger.
Trinity is best known today for its national and international social programs on behalf of the disadvantaged, although in its earliest days such outreach did not figure into its mission.
Background and history
Social and religious context Patterns of migration among both blacks during the Great Migration of African Americans between 1910 and 1940, and among whites, are an important part of the social context in which Trinity was founded. Another is the threat that radical black nationalism and black Islam posed to Christianity's influence among Chicago blacks, as well as to blacks nationwide. As these movements gained ground among Chicago blacks, Trinity sought to turn the attention of blacks back to Christianity.
1910 through 1940s Beginning around 1910, the Great Migration of African Americans occurred as many thousands of blacks migrated northward from the south. A great many settled on Chicago's southside. When they arrived, they brought with them the forms of Christianity they had practiced in the South. As elsewhere in the United States, Chicago blacks of the time faced serious discrimination in typically every area of their existence.
In the early 1930s, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad moved his embroiled religion's headquarters from Detroit to Chicago. Mixing elements of the Bible and the Qur'an, Elijah Muhammad taught that Africans were the Earth's first and most important people. He prophesied that a time was coming when African Americans would be fully vindicated, released from their various oppressions, and brought into full freedom within their own geographical state. For this to actualize, however, Elijah Muhammad taught that blacks had to radically separate from all whites. In addition, he proclaimed that blacks needed to live a moral life.
By the 1940s, the Nation of Islam's radical message had drawn in thousands of Chicago's blacks, many who had converted from one of the forms of Christianity their forebears brought northward to Chicago (see Trinity in comparative perspective, below, for a discussion of the various forms).Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims of America. 3rd ed., 1994.
1950s through 1960 Another of the contextual backdrops of Trinity is a pattern of migration that occurred in Chicago during the 1950s and 1960s, when middle-class whites began vacating urban areas for surrounding suburbs. As whites in southern Chicago migrated in large numbers to suburbs, upwardly mobile blacks from the "Black Belt" of Chicago's South Side migrated in, while non-mobile blacks remained in the South Side.Manning, Christopher (2005), "African Americans", Encyclopedia of Chicago. Available online.
Meanwhile, by 1960, the Nation of Islam national spokesperson Malcolm X had founded Mr. Muhammad Speaks in Chicago to help the continued spread of the Nation of Islam message. The newspaper achieved a circulation of over 600,000, making it one of the most prominent black American newspapers of the time. By this time, Nation of Islam ideology held a quite significant sway over Chicago blacks.Muhammad, Elijah. The Fall of America, 1973.Muhammad, Elijah. Message to the Blackman in America, 1965.
Founding It was within the above social context that Trinity came into being.
1961 through 1966: under Kenneth B. Smith On December 3, 1961, twelve middle-class black families, most descendants of migrants to Chicago during The Great Migration of African Americans, met for worship in a Chicago elementary school. Prior to the recent migration of whites to the suburbs, blacks had found it extremely difficult to move into middle-class surroundings in Chicago due to segregated housing patterns and homeownership discrimination (also see Racial steering). At the time of the 3 December meeting, Chicago's Halsted Street marked "the color line". During the late 19th century, Congregationalist missionaries, working through the American Missionary Association, established numerous black colleges and universities throughout the U.S. south and north. They insisted that educated blacks eliminate displays of emotion during singing and preaching. This practice widely persisted through much of the 1960s and was carried over into black Congregationalist churches; some AMA-derived churches in the UCC still use a more restrained liturgy to this day. Worship services at Trinity during the 1960s followed the standard order of service for Congregationalist churches: prayers, followed by liturgy and hymns from The Pilgrim Hymnal, followed by a well-organized homily, followed by a benediction, confined to one hour in total. There was no shouting, hand waving, or displays of emotions. One of Trinity's black ministers said, from the pulpit, "We will have no 'niggerisms' in our services." Trinity's first pastor, Kenneth B. Smith, was appointed by the Chicago Congregational Christian Association of the United Church of Christ (formed only in 1957) to expand the denomination toward southern Chicago, where blacks had recently begun to migrate from the "Black Belt" of Chicago's South Side to the more southerly urban areas whites had recently abandoned for the suburbs. The expressed vision of the association was to have a church for middle-class blacks, who would later merge with a congregation of suburban whites and have white and black co-pastors; in other words, an explicitly integrationist aim. Two successful African-American Congregational churches, Good Shepherd and Park Manor, had been started earlier in the twentieth century some distance to the north in the older South Side neighborhoods, so officials were probably expecting Trinity to emulate those previous developments. Smith came to the new church from an associate pastorate at Park Manor.
Although the vision was bold for the time, and a similar vision had been followed by other pockets of blacks both inside and outside of Chicago, it the same time produced apprehension within Trinity's upwardly mobile blacks, since some blacks in Chicago had had their homes burned for transgressing the color line. Moreover, the vision failed to address the many blacks who were still unable to reach upward mobility—those still on the South Side, those in the projects on the other side of Halsted Street, blacks who did not figure into the Association's vision because they were not considered "the right kind of black people".
Considerably later, the first African American conference minister of the United Church of Christ, the Rev. Dr. W. Sterling Cary, discussed the Association's disinterest in more detail. Cary wrote "Historically, the Association made special efforts to seek out 'high potential' churches within the Black community," which he said were understood as groups of blacks likely willing to be culturally assimilated into the forms and functions of worship of the Chicago Congregational Christian Association, with its strong Puritan heritage. American religion historian Julia Speller summarizes, "It was this racial reality that informed the planting of Trinity on the South Side of Chicago."Roof, Wade Clark, "Race and Residence in American Cities," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol 441 (January 1979), 6-7.
With the church's vision still maturing, Smith remained as pastor and led the growing congregation, while noting two things. Firstly, that the church's affiliation with a white denomination provided his congregants with a sense of unity and purpose within the mainline religious tradition of America (see Origins of the United Church of Christ). Secondly, the congregation began to find a kindred spirit with the denomination's commitment to justice and equality, as congregant activism began to emerge. Smith pointed to the march from Montgomery to Selma in 1965 under Martin Luther King Jr. as an event that fueled that activism, noting his congregants made picket signs and joined a Chicago area march in symbolic solidarity with southern blacks. However, Speller notes that the congregation's concern for the voting rights of southern blacks "stood in stark contrast to their obvious blind spot of the Association's position on church growth among African Americans in Chicago—one that supported only middle-class churches".
This period of the church culminated when plans to merge with a white congregation fell through—"whites were not much interested in integration" at the time, as Jason Byassee (editor at The Christian Century) notes—and the black congregation moved into its first church building in 1966. Seating two-hundred, it was located among the growing community of southern Chicago's middle-class blacks, east of the color line. Meanwhile, the Association continued its push for the church to focus ministry toward middle-class blacks.According to Speller, this foundational focus began to crack after the resignation of Smith, and a significant decline in membership that seemed inexplicable.
After leaving Trinity, Smith became pastor of Good Shepherd Church and president of Chicago Theological Seminary.
1966 to 1971: under Willie J. Jamerson "Following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr...our family moved into a racially changing Chicago community, where the vestiges of racism literally stood in our way. Racism manifested itself in insurance redlining, predatory lending practices and religious authorities working to maintain a line of segregation. The local activist Catholic priest declared no 'niggers' were allowed across Ashland Avenue... Out of this experience of brokenness and spiritual hope...black liberation theology emerged. The irrationality of racism and injustice provided the roots of an African-American theology focused on life in the present world.... The political, social and economic realities of African-American people get merged into the religious experience and are articulated through a message that is spiritual and social-speaking to the whole person." —Larry Pickens