Religion and Politics

Why a Black Church?

At The Atlantic, Emma Green discusses the religious context behind the shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. “To this day, churches are the center of social and political life in the American black community – and they are clear symbols of black influence and power,” Green writes. She interviews Laurie Maffly-Kipp, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis’ Danforth Center for Religion & Politics, which publishes this journal. Of black churches, Maffly-Kipp says, “It’s the one safe space they have for decades that is out of the surveillance of white communities.”

Read at The Atlantic

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