Filed under: News
When I first read about Harlem church tourism, I was outraged -- outraged for all the wrong reasons. I grew up in a church where selling things in church was a sacrilege. I remember the response to other churches selling catfish and chicken dinners. It. Just. Wasn't. Done. Whenever this subject would come up, blatant selling of wares in the church house, there would be some vague reference to money changers in the temple. We know how that worked out! (P.S. I also went to a church were women couldn't stand in the pulpit, enter the pastor's study or walk inside the sanctuary wearing pants -- but let's stick to the money-changing in the temple stuff today.)
I was taught that the church should be able to survive on the tithes and offerings of its members and that God would provide. And just in case the congregation forgot their biblical obligation, every Sunday right before offering we were treated to a recitation of Malachi 3:7-10:
7 Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?
8 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
I didn't know what all that meant as a child and fixated on "cursed with a curse!" The message was clear: Give God his 10 percent or an extra head would grow out of the side of your neck! The God of my childhood was a lot scarier. Everything is scarier in the King James Version.
But in the middle of my internal dialogue about how unseemly it was for people to offer tours of black churches in Harlem, I had a vision of all of the photos I have from my church tours of Europe. Me standing in the front of Notre-Dame, me sticking my head out side of one of the spires from the Sagrada Familia, and how could we forget the churches of all churches, the basilicas of Vatican City. Now I know how the folks in Europe must feel about us traipsing through their churches.
However, it's one thing to show off the historical significance of your edifice and an entirely different thing to turn praise and worship into entertainment. After all, the building isn't "church," it's the people in the church. Is that what these churches are selling in the form of Harlem church tourism? The people?
Related:
+Why Can't a Megachurch Pastor Like Bishop Eddie Long Drive a Bentley?
+Bishop Eddie Long Pictures Paint an Uncomfortable Image
"When the music started, the usher who had greeted us began dancing up and down the aisle. The congregation stood up and started to clap and sway. One tourist pantomimed the drumming and imitated the dancing in what looked like an attempt to impress two female friends" (Slate). Sounds like selling out the members as entertainment to me.
Sure, I'm outraged by foreign tourists treating black church folks like zoo animals but any given Sunday you can walk into a black church and find hundreds of people who came for the show. What should really outrage you is that church leaders are selling this tourism so cheaply. At Greater Highway Deliverance, for example, they get a mere $3 a head for tourists brought by the Harlem Spirituals tour company to enjoy Sunday service: "Co-pastor Hazel Page said Greater Highway receives $3 per visitor from Harlem Spirituals, which charges $55 to $99 per ticket for Sunday tours." (Slate)
Click for Gallery From Slate Magazine
You read that right. The tour company gets $99 and the church gets $3. Three dollars is NOT 10% of $99. These pastors need to reread Malachi 3:7-10.
The tackiness and tawdriness of the specter of tourists coming to gawk at black parishioners is dwarfed by the naked exploitation of these black parishioners by the tour companies and the pastors willing to sell them short. What offends me is not so much that black churches in Harlem are getting paid, but that they willing to get paid so little. That they place so little value on their church family. Talking about wanting to flip over some tables and throw folks out!
No one can question the historical and cultural significance of the black church in America. There was a time when every major movement was born out of it. Many of our most creative geniuses were birthed out of it. The black church has a rich and valuable history.
If that history is valuable enough to show off through Harlem church tourism, it is valuable enough to demand a fair share of the profits. Black churches in Harlem should demand as much from the tour operators as they do from their members. I believe this amount should be the generally acceptable tithe of ten percent. You see, the God of Malachi knows what he's entitled to and demands it... or else.
It's fine if these churches want to market themselves as cultural and historical institutions. I just hope that they embrace the lessons of history and don't turn themselves into one more example of outright robbery of black people and our culture.
In the grand scheme of the foolishness and chicanery that is taking place in Black America's churches these days, flocks of foreign tourists are the least of our worries -- but this is naked economic exploitation. Black churches in Harlem should either demand a fair share or cut the church tourism operators loose. God will provide.
Gina McCauley is the CEO of the Blogging While Brown Conference the blogs Michelle Obama Watch and What About Our Daughters. She is currently completing her first book, 'Michelle Obama Watch.'