To speak of reimagining the Black Church is to stand in a long tradition of holy critique and sacred hope. The Black Church, in all its denominational expressions, has never been static. It has evolved through enslavement, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement and into the present moment—shaped by both oppression and resilience.
Yet if we are to faithfully reimagine it today, we must acknowledge that the fullness of its witness cannot be captured by one tradition alone. Too often, the conversation centers Baptist and Pentecostal voices while overlooking the rich contributions of Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal, Catholic, Lutheran and other Africanized liturgical traditions. Faithful reimagining requires the whole choir of Black voices.
To reimagine the Black Church is to understand that all Black voices must be present. We begin with Absalom Jones—the first Black priest ordained in the Episcopal Church—who planted, formed and faithfully pastored the African Church of St. Thomas.
His ministry was not simply an ecclesiastical milestone; it was an act of holy defiance. Like other Africans who brought their traditional religious sensibilities into the frame of Catholicism, Jones and his contemporaries infused Anglican worship with the spiritual memory of Africa.
Their liturgies carried echoes of ancestral drums. Their theology drew from the well of liberation, even when the institution itself was bound by segregation.
To be clear, this was not assimilation; it was sacred adaptation. It was the bending of a colonial church toward the survival and flourishing of African-descended people in America.
It must also be said that the work of preserving sacred memory is often more visibly embodied in the more Catholic or traditional liturgical expressions of the Black Church. These spaces—Episcopal, Catholic, Lutheran and others—become living archives of Black sacred heritage. We see it in the weaving of kente into priestly vestments, in mudcloth stitched into altar paraments, in the adornment of communion tables with the colors and textures of Africa.
To look upon that table—where the priest lifts bread and wine, declaring them the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ—is to witness more than a ritual. It is to see a sacred convergence: the memory of Christ’s sacrifice mingled with the enduring memory of African-descended people. The altar becomes not only where heaven meets earth, but where the survival, resilience and beauty of a people meet the holy presence of God.
Here’s the challenge: In recent years, I’ve noticed seminaries—even those with Black Church Studies programs—hosting conversations about “reimagining the Black Church” where the table is set almost exclusively with Pentecostal and Baptist voices. Historically, it’s true that Baptist leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Ralph Abernathy, alongside AME pioneers such as James Hal Cone, stood at the forefront of the struggle for justice. Yet, in these conversations, we too often neglect the profound witness of leaders like The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray.
What makes this exclusion all the more troubling is that even the very scholars who have shaped Black theological thought are not solely products of Baptist or Pentecostal traditions. Black theological scholarship has been profoundly shaped by Black Methodists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Think of James Cone’s AME grounding, Katie Cannon’s Presbyterian witness, or Kelly Brown Douglas’ Episcopal trailblazing.
How dare we draw on their theological brilliance while leaving their liturgical traditions out of the conversation? To truly reimagine the Black Church, we must take seriously the worship, sacramental life, and ecclesial imagination of these traditions as integral to the fabric of our shared story.
This is not to minimize the work of leaders like Dr. King, Reverend Abernathy, Rev. Al Sharpton or Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Their courage shaped the moral landscape of the nation. But it is to amplify that within our Black liturgical spaces—Episcopal, Catholic, Lutheran, and others—the African memory, tradition, and African traditional religion have always been housed.
These communities have preserved a way of encountering God that is not rooted in the pastor as singular power, but in a sacramental vision that trusts a priest to stand before the people and before God—more like a shaman or a healer of the community—mediating divine mystery rather than consolidating congregational control.
This is one of the reasons why today, many of our more Africanized liturgical traditions—those Episcopal, Catholic and Lutheran spaces that wove our heritage into their worship—tend to lean more liberal in their theological posture. Meanwhile, many Baptist and Pentecostal sisters and brothers—whose predecessors often resisted King’s vision—have become increasingly evangelical, shaped by the political and theological currents of white Christian religiosity.
If we are to truly reimagine the Black Church, we must bring all of these voices to the table. We need the fire of Pentecostal testimony, the moral courage of Baptist proclamation, the justice tradition of AME organizing, the sacramental beauty of Episcopal and Catholic worship, the contemplative depth of Black monastic communities, and the prophetic creativity of independent Black congregations.
Reimagining the Black Church requires nothing less than a full and honest conversation—one that refuses to privilege a single tradition, but instead honors the fullness of our collective sacred memory.
To reimagine the Black Church is not nostalgia; it is resurrection work. It is to believe that the Spirit who fell at Pentecost is still falling on all flesh, summoning a Church that is freer, bolder and more rooted in its African soul. It is to stand at the altar, the revival tent, and the protest line and say, “The God who met us in brush arbors, praise houses, and urban cathedrals is still here.”
The future of the Black Church will not be written by one denomination or one theological stream. It will be sung in many keys—sometimes in harmony, sometimes in tension—but always in the shared conviction that God is still with us.
A truly reimagined Black Church will not only honor our sacred memory, it will make new memories for the generations to come, carrying forward the drumbeat of liberation until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
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Rev. Keion Jackson is a minister, an Episcopalian and an Independent Liturgical Theologian.
