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At critical time for race relations, coronavirus attacks Detroit's Black church leadership

Deaths of Black pastors is particularly grievous because church leaders have historically been at the forefront of the community.

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Church members and family of East Side Unity Church of God in Christ say their final good bye to Administrative Assistant Robert Butts, Jr. Saturday, May 9, 2020. Butts passed away April 27, 2020 from complications due to COVID-19. Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press

When the Rev. Jonathan Wynne thinks about his long-time pastor, Bishop P.A. Brooks, his mind goes beyond the walls of New St. Paul Tabernacle Church of God in Christ.

Brooks pastored the Detroit church for 63 years, but his reach extended far beyond the building, which sits on the Southfield freeway service drive near Fenkell, along a stretch of road now named in his honor.

One of the highest ranking leaders of the Church of God in Christ, Brooks was a champion for civil rights and economic justice. 

“He was not afraid to speak truth to power,” Wynne said. “He stood up for those who didn’t have a voice.” 

Brooks died April 9. The grief and pain felt by his congregation and denomination is being experienced by many Black churches that have lost leaders to COVID-19. Brooks’ family said they would rather focus on his life than whatever caused his death.

Nonetheless, the losses are particularly grievous because Black church leaders have historically been at the forefront of the community guiding activism aimed at improving the lives of Black Americans — a community hit disproportionately hard by the deadly virus. 

As of Sunday, COVID-19 had sickened at least 11,305 Detroiters, resulting in 1,420 confirmed deaths of the virus, most of them Black.

“We look to our religious leaders to provide us with a way forward, and for African American pastors that has never been only in a spiritual sense,” said Terri Laws, a Black church scholar at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

“The church has been wounded,” Laws said. “This illness has wounded a core part of what it means to be African American.”

Conversations with religious leaders, scholars and church members paint a picture of tremendous concern.

The Church of God in Christ, the oldest and largest predominantly African-American Pentecostal denomination in the United States, lost two of its top bishops — both from Michigan. In addition to Bishop P.A. (Phillip Aquilla) Brooks, Bishop Nathaniel Wells Jr., a prominent civic and religious leader in Muskegon, passed March 24.

“A total of seventeen Bishops have died since January 2020; twelve of those since March 1. In addition to these bishops, our organization also regrets to report the loss of several pastors, elders and congregants,” states a post on the denomination’s website.

Other local losses affiliated with that denomination include Bishop C.L. Morton Jr. who pastored churches in Detroit and Windsor; the Rev. Myron E. Lett, pastor of the Salvation and Praise Outreach Ministry who passed March 25; the Rev. Steven B. Dunlap, pastor of the Greater Love Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, who passed April 15; and the Rev. Robert Butts Jr., pastor at East Side Unity Church of God in Christ who passed April 27.

In Flint, Bishop Robert Earl Smith Sr., pastor Kevelin Jones, both of Bountiful Love Ministries, and Elder Freddie Brown, a religious leader at Jackson Memorial Temple Church of God in Christ, passed within days of each other in March.

Among other prominent Detroit leaders within the COGIC who have passed is the beloved Mother Willie Mae Sheard, who was a prominent leader of women’s ministries within the denomination. Greater Mitchell Temple Church of God in Christ, pastored by her husband, Bishop John H. Sheard, hosted a special community service day — that included free COVID-19 testing — in her honor June 3. Bishop Sheard himself is recovering from a serious bout of the disease.

Volunteers do COVID-19 testing during the Greater Mitchell Temple Church of God in Christ community service day that offered free COVID-19 testing in honor of church mother Willie Mae Sheard who passed from complications of the coronavirus April 19. Locals were tested free of charge Wednesday, June 3, 2020 in Detroit.
Volunteers do COVID-19 testing during the Greater Mitchell Temple Church of God in Christ community service day that offered free COVID-19 testing in honor of church mother Willie Mae Sheard who passed from complications of the coronavirus April 19. Locals were tested free of charge Wednesday, June 3, 2020 in Detroit. Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press

The Church of God in Christ isn’t alone in losing leaders to COVID-19.

Other pastors who have died due to the virus include the Rev. Nathaniel Slappey Sr., who pastored the New St. Luke Baptist Church in Detroit, and the Rev. David Ford, of the Friend Home of Prayer Baptist Church in Lansing.

The effect is devastating, said the Rev. Oscar King, pastor of Northwest Unity Missionary Baptist Church, who’s also the past president of the Council of Baptists Pastors in Detroit and Vicinity. 

Absence painfully felt at time of need

The losses are felt on multiple levels: the family, the church and the wider community.

“It’s loss on top of loss on top of loss,” Laws said. “It’s hard to see where to go to next at a time when the person who passed away would have been the person to provide the salve for that hurt on each of those multiple levels.”

For African Americans, church has always been more than a Sunday event, said the Rev. Steven Bland, president of the Council of Baptist Pastors in Detroit and Vicinity, which represents about 100 churches. “Historically, church was not just a part of life; church was central to life itself. Church was always the place we turned to not only for inspiration, but information. That’s how we made it through.”

Tammy Harris, pastor of St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Detroit, said religious leaders in the Black community have always worn many hats. “Talk about essential workers,” Harris said. “We’re change agents for hope among the hopeless.”

Many of the nation’s Black civil rights leaders were ministers first, including Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth and C.T. Vivian, as was pointed out by Bishop Charles Ellis III, who helped organize a diverse, clergy-led march June 4, protesting the killing of George Floyd and other African Americans.

“There’s no way we can minister in a spiritual way, and not try to benefit our people, be their voice and have their back when it comes to the natural things of society,” said Ellis, pastor of Greater Grace Temple in Detroit. “We would become so heavenly-bound, we’re no earthly good.”

It was critical that clergy step up and be a part of demands for change, Ellis said. “I don’t see how you change systems without us sitting at the table,” he said.

The racial disparities made stark by the virus church should be a wake-up call for the Black church, said the Rev. James Perkins, immediate past president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, which represents 2,000 churches in the United States and the Bahamas.

“This virus has exposed the inequities in health care, in jobs that pay a living wage for our people,” said Perkins, pastor of Detroit’s Greater Christ Baptist Church on the city’s east side. “So we have to be focused on the same issues that we have been focused on as the historic Black church. We don’t need to come out of this and then just go back to business as usual. We need to organize ourselves and speak in such a way that we can impact policy and make changes to health care, and jobs and the economic circumstances that we face.”

Williams said the stay-at-home mandates demanded by the pandemic have also forced the Black church to quickly adapt to new ways of worshiping, including online services and Bible study, methods that can prove beneficial in the long run for broader outreach and to reduce loss of lives that has resulted from large, intimate gatherings.

“We’re pleading with churches, do not contribute to the loss of life (by rushing to resume large gatherings),” Williams said. “God can meet you wherever you are.”

A time of challenge, and change

Third New Hope Baptist Church Pastor QuanTez Pressley said the losses are an especially heavy burden for the community because these leaders cannot be honored and celebrated in the manner they deserve.

The losses demand a deepened level of faith, Pressley said.

Third New Hope lead pastor QuanTez Pressley gives his sermon via live stream Sunday, May 24, 2020. About  950 members regularly attend services in person however the seating is being rearranged to accommodate the social distancing requirements.
Third New Hope lead pastor QuanTez Pressley gives his sermon via live stream Sunday, May 24, 2020. About 950 members regularly attend services in person however the seating is being rearranged to accommodate the social distancing requirements. Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press

“We have to maintain our faith in the midst of hardship and struggle,” he said.

The losses of church leaders, as grievous as they are, present a challenge to new opportunities for new leaders to emerge, several church leaders and religious scholars said.

“While we certainly grieve the passing of our elders, their passing passes to us a torch to take up and to carry out the calling that the gospel mandates to the church,” said Williams of the Interdenominational Theological Center.

Wynne, who was mentored by Bishop Brooks, said God is entrusting a new generation of leaders.

“It creates an opportunity for those of us who have been mentored to step up and apply the lessons they have taught us. It puts a responsibility on those who remain to make sure that their lives and their efforts were not in vain. We have to continue what they started and take it to the next level.”

Harris said while the Black church is no doubt hurting from so many leaders who have passed, the coronavirus will not kill it.

“I’m not worried about the Black church,” she said. “The Black church survived slavery, Jim Crow and all other kinds of injustices. Not only will it survive, it will thrive.”

Cassandra Spratling is a former Free Press feature writer; contact her at cassprat@gmail.com. Brendel Hightower contributed to this report. 

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