National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) Religious Literacy Primer

The USC Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement created this religious literacy primer for the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), in an effort to help members of the organization engage with the faith community to promote homeownership and wealth-building in African American communities.

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According to the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) Members Guide Book for Success (2017), “NAREB introduced the 2 Million New Black Homeowners in 5 years (2Mn5) program not only to jumpstart wealth-building through homeownership, but also to heighten awareness among Black Americans, policymakers and the general public” of the importance of economic strength in African-American communities and the necessity of building that strength to benefit the nation’s economy as a whole.

To date, NAREB has worked to educate, train and build the capacity of realtists to assist them in overcoming unique hurdles to homeownership in Black communities. The aim of this programming has been to achieve democracy in housing. This report will focus on engaging the faith community as an additional element of the strategy in pursuit of 2Mn5 program goals.

The aim of this report is to provide real estate agents with information about religious organizations located in predominantly Black communities. Houses of worship are cornerstones in Black communities. Faith communities and institutions have been sources of political movements such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Underground Railroad, and they are also one of the strongest economic engines in the community. Many houses of worship own rental properties, apartment buildings and commercial real estate, while also being the spiritual home for people from all socio-economic backgrounds. This document will assist real estate agents in their efforts to market to Black communities through connections to local faith-related organizations and leaders.

For Black communities, faith leaders have historically played a critical role in almost all walks of life. From health management to wealth management, to civil rights and housing advocacy, the Black Church has long been an integral part of African-American communal life and a vital actor in civic engagement. As NAREB thinks about engaging key stakeholders to increase homeownership in Black communities, it must educate itself on the role of faith communities. Toward that end, NAREB members must gain a basic literacy in how the diverse set of faith leaders operate. This is necessary to gain access, build partnerships and establish trust in Black communities in order to, as NAREB says, “build wealth through homeownership.”

Report Summary

This report provides information about the largest religious traditions and denominations in Black communities, providing a basic understanding of how these denominations operate, how the leadership structure is organized and how their decision-making is negotiated, as well as a historical overview of their development and a bit about their economic and financial structure.

Please keep in mind that these profiles will provide a basic overview and will not address finer points such as regional and local differences between particular denominations. Each individual in a faith community is unique in how they understand and interpret the mandates and the teachings of their faith. Nonetheless, this sort of foundational religious and cultural competence can open doors in the religious community and aid in relationship building.

The report is written to identify and describe traditions as they define themselves, not by how others may view them. Please also keep in mind that reliable statistics on religious affiliation in the United States are notoriously difficult to obtain. Population statistics provided should be considered estimates. This guide should be augmented by field experience working with religious communities and individuals and is best used as a tool for developing relationships with religious actors for the purpose of bettering the community. An orientation toward building community rather than clientele is exceptionally important when cultivating relationships with faith communities across denominations and even across different faith traditions.

This report provides information about the largest religious traditions and denominations in Black communities, providing a basic understanding of how these denominations operate, how the leadership structure is organized and how their decision-making is negotiated, as well as a historical overview of their development and a bit about their economic and financial structure.

This report will cover the follow:

• Overview of Religious Competency
• Relationship-Building: Community, Not Clientele
• Christian Traditions in the African-American Community
  • African Methodism:
    • African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
    • African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church
    • Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church
  • Church of God in Christ (COGIC)
  • National Baptist Convention
  • Catholicism
  • SHORT PROFILES:
    • Black Episcopalianism
    • Black Interdenominational
• Islamic Traditions in the African-American Community
  • Introduction
  • Nation of Islam
  • Sunni and Shia Islam

You can navigate these tips sheets using the menu to the right (on a computer browser) or above (on a mobile device).

To see full endnotes, please refer to the end section of our report.

Religious competence, not unlike cultural competence, is the level of knowledge-based skills of individuals or organizations required to provide effective engagement to individuals of a particular religious group. Religious competence is not about being politically correct or providing special privileges to one group to the exclusion of others; rather, it is about customizing your engagement strategy to the needs of each group, meeting their needs in the way they want them met, and with the underlying mission of building trust and long-term, sustainable partnerships.

COMMUNICATION

• Use appropriate forms of address.
• Many lay community leaders also have titles such as Doctor, Brother, Sister or simply Mr./Ms.
• Ask others for their preferred name/title if unsure—better to err on the side of caution and start with formal titles.
• Some religious traditions have greetings used by members; these may be appreciated but not required for those outside the group.
• Use the best medium to reach your audience rather than the option that is easiest for you. While some cultures place importance on written information, others rely heavily on social networks and find in-person communication to be more trustworthy.
• Use non-print mediums (TV, radio, social media, in-person meetings) to reach those who predominately consume and interact with media in these formats.
• Be cognizant of socioeconomic levels—comfort levels with borrowing money and experience with filing paperwork will vary.
• Pay attention to your own nonverbal communications and those of others, including eye contact and body language.

MEETING LOGISTICS

• Choose meeting locations thoughtfully, considering neutral spaces and those that are ADA-accessible.
• In interfaith or inter-denomination settings, consider rotating meeting spaces to ensure fairness and to avoid any appearance of bias toward one group, including any cultural factors, especially religion, neighborhood or socioeconomic group.
• Different cultures view time intervals and time durations differently.
• Remember many community and religious leaders are bi-vocational. Avoid meeting scheduling during the daytime when possible or rotate meeting schedules. Respect Sabbath days and religious holy days.
• Check calendars online for any potential religious holidays or conflicts.
• If hosting a meeting where food is provided, ensure that food meets all dietary restrictions and is appropriate to the target audience. Ask the faith leader what their community enjoys eating. If it is an interfaith meeting, ensure kosher, halal and vegetarian options are available, as appropriate.

HOW TO DRESS

• Wear modest clothing when entering houses of worship. Generally, this means clothing that covers shoulders, chest, knees and elbows.
• Some items of jewelry such as bracelets, necklaces or beads worn by both males and females may have religious significance and should not be touched or removed without the wearer’s permission.

GENDER, PHYSICAL INTERACTION AND PERSONAL SPACE

• Touch can be seen as a friendly gesture or as invasive.
• Religious norms may mean someone moves closer to you or farther away.
• Avoid initiating physical contact when meeting or greeting those from religious traditions that differ from your own, especially those of the opposite gender. Initiating common gestures, such as shaking hands or hugging/embracing,
  may not be welcomed or met with the expected reaction.
• Be prepared with an alternative gesture, such as placing the right hand on one’s own heart, when being introduced.
• When in doubt, ask before making assumptions, wait for a leader to initiate or ask first.

This section has been adapted with permission from materials created by the National Disaster Interfaiths Network and the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

As NAREB explores creating networks within faith communities to further its 2Mn5 program to increase homeownership in the African-American community, it should orient itself toward a relationship-building mode. Realtists should not approach houses of worship or other faith-based organizations with the goal of gaining clients but rather establishing programming that can advance the standard of living based on community needs. This relationship is a long-term investment, not a short-term transaction.

STEP ONE: Demonstrate Respect

Before organizations and their leadership will be willing to extend trust to a new partner, they will often begin by ensuring that potential partners are respectful. Respect in this sense generally means that an individual shows deference to community norms, is knowledgeable, both about the community and about themselves and their work, and is articulate, both in painting a picture that explains values, roles, skills and contributions but also in disclosing purpose and interest.

STEP TWO: Build trust with faith leaders and their congregations and/or membership.

Building trust and showing your commitment to community development and advancement is critical to establishing a relationship that can lead to future homeownership.

STEP THREE: Implement a community needs assessment to determine the barriers to homeownership within the local community.

Every locality is different and each has different needs, challenges, barriers and competencies. Once trust is established, work with local faithbased institutions to survey their population to determine what is hindering homeownership rates as well as what has been successful in improving the ability of community members to purchase property in the past. By conducting a needs assessment, you will be able to deliver programming, services and training that is tailored to the particular needs of that community.

STEP FOUR: Offer programming and training or consult on creating new connections that can raise the capacity of communities to purchase property.

Once you have established yourself as a trusted partner, create a menu of options that can help build the capacity of a population to purchase property. Some ideas for potential programming and network creation include:

• Create an inventory of first-time home buyer assistance programs in the area and provide a training on how to access them.
• Create an inventory of down-payment assistance programs in the area and provide a training on how to access them.
• Provide financial literacy classes or locate some that are already provided in the area.
• Provide credit repair programs or locate some that are already provided in the area.
• Provide a training on budgeting for homeownership.
• Implement a training on debt-to-income ratio and predatory lending.
• Provide classes on selling your home, including lessons on how to stage your home for prospective buyers.

By becoming a community advancement partner and working to enhance the capacity of populations to establish wealth, you can not only advance your business, but you do so while increasing the vitality and health of a community.

Orientation/Classification: Pentecostal-Holiness / Protestant

Adherents Consider Themselves: Christians

House of Worship: Church

Religious Leader: Chaplain, pastor, bishop, ordained elder, apostles. COGIC does not ordain women as elder or bishop. Women do serve as lay leaders within the church.

Population: Estimated over 6.5 million members and 12,000 churches world-wide

POINTS OF CONTACT

Churches are organized into jurisdictions, each under the authority of a bishop. COGIC has departments to further support the work of the church. These departments include the Women’s Department, the Sunday School Department, the Youth Department (known as Young People Willing Workers, or YPWW), and Missions and Evangelism. As COGIC has continued to grow, new departments, auxiliaries and ministries have been established, including the Music Department, the National Adjutancy, the Men’s Department, COGIC Charities, and Urban Initiatives, to name a few. These auxiliaries are found in nearly every church, district and jurisdiction in COGIC.

FOOD

The church has a tradition of prayer, fasting, praise and consecration that was once unique to Holiness or Pentecostal groups. Many Mainline Protestant denominations and countless nondenominational churches that once rejected these beliefs and practices have adopted them in their worship liturgy and lifestyle practices.

DRESS

As a classical Pentecostal Holiness church, COGIC continues to embrace its holiness heritage, teaching moderation in dress, appearance and participation in secular entertainment as well as prohibitions against profanity, alcohol, substance abuse and immoral behavior. COGIC is a conservative denomination. Dress should be modest and business-formal. Touch between the genders should be limited.

OTHER

COGIC clergy are allowed to be married. Remarriage is highly discouraged, except in the case of the death of a spouse. Divorce is considered inconsistent with biblical teachings and highly discouraged as well. COGIC considers any sexual relationship outside of the sanctity of marriage to be at odds with the sovereign will of God. COGIC clergy do not officially sanction or recognize same-sex relationships. COGIC continues to maintain its official position against legalizing same-sex marriage and homosexuality.

SCHEDULING MEETINGS

When scheduling meetings and planning outreach, be aware of the following annual events, while also avoiding Sundays:

• Leadership Conference (January)
• General Assembly and Call Meeting (April) in Memphis
• Men Perfecting Men Conference (May)
• General Council of Pastors and Elders (May)
• International Women’s Crusade and Convention (May)
• National Judicial Conference (June)
• Auxiliaries in Ministry (AIM) Conference (July)
• Bishop Mason’s Birthday/Founder’s Celebration (September)
• Bishop’s Conference (September)
• International Holy Convocation and General Assembly (November)

GOVERNANCE

The church has two structures to govern its affairs: civil and ecclesiastical. The civil structure of the Church of God in Christ includes a President, First Vice-President, Second Vice-President, General Secretary, General Treasurer and Financial Secretary. All officers are elected by the General Assembly. The General Secretary, General Treasurer and Financial Secretary terms run concurrent with the presidential administration, which is elected every four years.

The ecclesiastical authority of the church is vested in a General Assembly, composed of the members of the General Board, jurisdictional/ auxiliary bishops, jurisdictional supervisors, chaplains, pastors, ordained elders, four district missionaries and six lay members from each jurisdiction. The General Assembly elects a 12- person General Board (Presidium) every four years from the College of Bishops, who serve as Apostles of the church. As a result, the General Board exercises great authority over the church. The Presidium includes a separately elected International Presiding Bishop who serves a term of four years and who then appoints two Assistant Presiding Bishops. The current Presiding Bishop and Chief Apostle is Bishop Charles E. Blake, Sr., who is the Senior Pastor of West Angeles Church of God In Christ. National officers of the church are chosen at the General Assembly every four years unless special elections are warranted.

The General Assembly is the supreme authority over the church in matters of faith and practice. Jurisdictions range in size between 30 and 100 churches. Each state in the U.S. consists of at least one jurisdiction, and several states have more than one jurisdiction. These jurisdictions are then subdivided into districts, which consist of five to seven churches and are governed by superintendents (ordained elders or pastors). There are more than 200 ecclesiastical jurisdictions around the world, with 170 in the United States. Jurisdictions are similar to the national church in terms of composition, polity and procedure.

HISTORY

In 1907, Charles Harrison Mason formed the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) after his Baptist church expelled him. Mason was a member of the Holiness movement of the late 19th century. In 1906, he attended the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. Upon his return to Tennessee, he began teaching the Pentecostal Holiness message. However, Charles Price Jones and J. A. Jeter of the Holiness movement disagreed with Mason’s teachings on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Jones changed the name of his COGIC church to the Church of Christ (Holiness) USA in 1915. At a conference in Memphis, Tennessee, Mason reorganized the Church of God in Christ as a Holiness Pentecostal body. The headquarters of COGIC is Mason Temple in Memphis. It is the site of Martin Luther King’s final sermon, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” delivered the day before he was assassinated.

Orientation/Classification: Protestant/Baptist

Adherents Consider Themselves: Christian

House of Worship: Church

Religious Leader: Pastor, Minister, Deacon

Population: 31,000 congregations and 7.5 to 9 million members

OTHER (GENDER, DRESS, ETC.)

The convention does not make official positions binding on its member congregations, state conventions and institutions. There are many women ordained and/or licensed to serve in the convention’s affiliated congregations. A number of women serve as Pastors of congregations and as Trustees to the boards of American Baptist colleges. Some congregations do not ordain or license women as ministers. Other congregations have women deacons.

Regarding LGBTQ issues, when some Pastors and congregations affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA, announced their support for same-sex marriage, the convention issued the following statement: “The National Baptist Convention, USA, does not dictate to its constituent churches what position to take on issues because we believe in the autonomy of the local church.” The National Baptist Convention does not have any official stance regarding Pentecostal and Charismatic expressions of worship in their churches’ services or in their meetings and conventions, as they believe their churches have autonomous authority. In fact, in many churches that are part of the National Baptist Convention, and in many of their meetings and conventions across the United States, their adherents and clergy often practice, believe in, and exhibit the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit that are practiced in Pentecostalism such as speaking in tongues and being “slain in the Spirit” in their worship services. They also make consistent use of high-tempo traditional Black gospel and Contemporary Christian music in their services.

SCHEDULING MEETINGS

When scheduling a meeting with members of the church, avoid Sundays and Mondays as well as the following holidays:

• Ash Wednesday—in the seventh week before Easter, the beginning of the meditative fasting periods of Lent
• Palm Sunday—seven days before Easter, the observance of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem
• Maundy Thursday—the Thursday before Easter, the observance of the Last Supper of Jesus
• Good Friday—the Friday before Easter, the observance of the Crucifixion of Jesus
• Easter—first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or soonest after March 21, a day in which the Resurrection of Jesus is celebrated
• Pentecost—40 days after Easter, celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit
• Christmas—December 25, commemorating the birth of Jesus

GOVERNANCE

The National Baptist Convention’s members form voluntary state and territory-wide local conventions. The state conventions are autonomous organizations and separately incorporated.

HISTORY

The National Baptist Convention, USA (NBCUSA) is made up of approximately 7.5 million AfricanAmerican Baptists, making it the largest AfricanAmerican organization in the country. It was founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1895 when the leaders of the American National Baptist Convention, the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention and the National Baptist Educational Convention joined to form the National Baptist Convention (NBC).

The NBC was rooted in the Consolidated American Baptist Missionary Convention (CABMC), which was formed in the 1860s as a platform for Black Baptists. The CABMC’s survival was contingent on the support of northern white Baptists and lost its funding after Reconstruction. The National Baptist Convention was formed in 1895 in order to unite Black Baptists and consolidate their influence. Elias Camp Morris was elected the NBC’s first President and served until his death in 1921.

The early NBC’s work included foreign missions, funding for education and the establishment of newspapers and journals. The NBC also created the National Baptist Publishing Board (NBPB) in 1896, which produced hymnals, Sunday School materials, and the National Baptist Union-Review.

In 1915, the NBC split into two separate factions, the National Baptist Convention, USA and the National Baptist Convention of America. The NBCUSA split again in 1961, this time over the issue of civil rights. Convention president Joseph Harrison Jackson promoted a conservative approach to civil rights, in contrast to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent civil disobedience. While King did not wish to cause a schism, his supporters encouraged him to run for President. King and his allies eventually left the NBCUSA and formed the Progressive National Baptist Convention.

Orientation/Classification: Catholic

Adherents Consider Themselves: Catholic/Christian

House of Worship: Church/Parish/Cathedral

First Point of Contact: Priest, Sister, Bishop or lay leader Women are not ordained in the Catholic Church.

Population: Approximately 800 of the 21,000 parishes in the U.S. are predominantly African-American. There are roughly 3 million Black Catholics in the U.S., making this population larger than membership of the AME Church.

GREETING

A priest should be addressed as “father” and a bishop should be addressed as “bishop.” Consecrated women, or nuns, should be addressed as “sister” or “mother.”

PHYSICAL INTERACTION

Black Catholics and Catholic congregations are usually conservative. Touch between genders should be limited, and you should ask before shaking hands or hugging someone of the opposite sex.

FOOD

Catholics observe ritual fasting. Many Catholics fast the 40 days of Lent and participate in obligatory days of abstinence. During Lent, abstinence means that Catholics do not eat meat on Fridays. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal, over the course of the day. For members of the Catholic Church, fasting is obligatory from age 18 until age 59, and abstinence is bindings after age 14. Besides Lent, other penitential times are customarily accompanied by fasting or abstinence. These include Advent, the Ember Days, the Rogation Days, Fridays throughout the year, and vigils of important feast days. Catholic fasting traditions vary around the world.

OTHER (GENDER, DRESS, ETC.)

Dress should be formal, professional and modest.

SCHEDULING MEETINGS

On holy days of obligation, Catholics are obliged to participate in Mass. Every Sunday is a holy day of obligation, as are six other days throughout the year.

HISTORY

On April 16, 1968, Father Herman Porter, a Black priest from Rockford, Illinois, convened the first meeting of the Black Catholic Clergy Caucus in Detroit. Fifty-eight Black priests, along with at least one brother and woman religious (or sister), gathered to draft the statement that inaugurated the national Black Catholic Movement. Its provocative opening words were: “The Catholic Church in the United States, primarily a white racist institution, has addressed itself primarily to white society and is definitely a part of that society.”

Later that year, Sister Martin de Porres Grey organized the National Black Sisters’ Conference, challenging Black Sisters to involve themselves in the liberation of Black people. The sisters’ statement was no less radical than that of the priests. The National Convention of Black Lay Catholics was organized in 1969, and by 1970, these allied organizations had exerted enough pressure on the national organization of U.S. Catholic bishops to win official approval for a National Office for Black Catholics, based in Washington, DC.

While these Black Catholic organizations were new, the presence of Black Catholics in the Americas was not. There have been Catholics of African descent in the Americas for as long as there have been Catholics in the Americas. The early 20th century saw the mass movement of AfricanAmericans from the rural South to the urban North and West, known as “the Great Migration.” As Black migrants moved into Catholic metropolises such as Chicago and Detroit, some white Catholics openly resisted what they took to be an invasion of “their turf.” They formed racial covenants to exclude Black families from buying homes and intimidated, harassed and attacked those families that managed to do so. Many white Catholics began a long, fraught process of leaving their inner-city parishes behind and moving to the suburbs.

Nationally, the Black Catholic population grew from less than 300,000 to nearly one million members between 1940 to 1975, while its center of gravity shifted from the coastal South to the industrial North.

The Black Catholic Movement culminated in 1984 when the ten Black bishops in the United States declared that the American Black Catholic community had “come of age.” After more than a decade of activism, scholarship and struggle, it was finally possible for Black Catholics to be, in their words, both “authentically Black” and “truly Catholic.”

People of African descent have a long heritage in the Episcopal Church. Over the past 130 years there have been 38 Black bishops consecrated in the Episcopal Church. These bishops hail from the African Diaspora, as well as Africa. All bishops are assigned a number by the Secretary of the House of Bishops according to their date of consecration. For example, Bishop James Theodore Holly was the first Black Episcopal Bishop, consecrated November 8, 1874, the first Bishop of Haiti, number 106a. The most recently consecrated Black bishop is number 1010 in the American Succession, Nathan D. Baxter, Bishop of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, consecrated October 21, 2006.

Today the Episcopal Church maintains a directory of Black Congregations by diocese, along with resources tailored specifically for Black congregations. The Episcopal Church in the United States is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Christian denomination divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is Michael Bruce Curry, the first African-American bishop to serve in that position. The church was organized after the American Revolution, when it became separate from the Church of England, whose clergy are required to swear allegiance to the British monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

The Book of Common Prayer, a collection of traditional rites, blessings, liturgies and prayers used throughout the Anglican Communion, is central to Episcopal worship. The Episcopal Church was active in the Social Gospel movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s and 1970s, the church has pursued a decidedly more liberal course. It has opposed the death penalty and supported the Civil Rights Movement and affirmative action. Some of its leaders and priests are known for marching with influential civil rights demonstrators such as Martin Luther King, Jr. The church calls for the full legal equality of LGBT people. In 2015, the church’s 78th triennial General Convention passed resolutions allowing the blessing of same-sex marriages and approved two official liturgies to bless such unions.x The Episcopal Church ordains women and LGBT people to the priesthood, the diaconate and the episcopate, despite opposition from a number of other member churches of the Anglican Communion. In 2003, Gene Robinson became the first openly gay person ordained as a bishop.

To be interdenominational, a church or organization subscribes to no particular Christian denomination, but incorporates religious rituals and expressions stemming from several denominations. This is similar to being nondenominational, and some use the terms interchangeably, though there is a subtle difference. Nondenominational churches are not affiliated with any Christian denomination, whereas interdenominational churches seek to include strengths of several denominations.

Declaring themselves interdenominational, some churches, mission organizations or parachurch ministries desire to embrace people from many branches of Christianity, while others want to avoid oversight by a denominational hierarchy. Some people have a negative view of institutional religion and traditional denominations. Interdenominational churches want to welcome these people, who may not attend a church with an institutional affiliation.

Most interdenominational churches are independent and govern themselves internally rather than through a denominational hierarchy of accountability. Leaders of interdenominational churches prize the freedom to seek and follow the Holy Spirit apart from the oversight of an organization. They embrace the ability to act in the interest of their congregation and avoid issues that may cause arguments and division. However, critics point out that such churches can be led astray from orthodox Christianity without external oversight and authority. An additional critique of interdenominational churches is that they offer a weakened or watered-down Gospel in an effort to attract a wide array of people or to avoid offending anyone, regardless of their beliefs.

These churches can also suffer during difficult times, with no financial and organizational support from a larger denomination. Denominational leadership provides checks and balances, big-picture direction, and leadership assistance, if needed. Interdenominational churches often have a shallow pool of preachers and elders. An interdenominational church can sometimes rely on a strong pastor so heavily that the congregation will fold if the pastor leaves or dies.