FINDING BLACK EPISCOPAL SPACES
The altar of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Harlem. Photo courtesy of their Facebook page.
I found my way to St. Philip’s, Harlem, in the fall of 2018, after a conversation with my mentor, the Rev. Christine Lee (now priest-in-charge at St. Peter’s, Chelsea) which turned to her heart for Harlem, where she lived at the time. After being in and around the Episcopal tradition for a year, this was my introduction to historically black Episcopal congregations—my mind simply had not conceived of such a thing prior to this. I did a quick internet search which led me to the website of St. Philip's on 134 Street. As I read the brief "Our History" tab, I was taken aback by how rich the legacy of the church was.
After a century of meeting as a black mission in NYC supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, these black Episcopalians left Trinity Church Wall St. (where they had been meeting in a separate black service, not being permitted to worship with the white congregation) and founded their own parish in 1808. Their first rector, Peter Williams, was the second black man ordained in TEC. The church went on to weather multiple complete destructions of its property (once due to an accidental fire, another due to domestic terrorism during the NYC anti-black riots of 1834), racist diocesan policies preventing the sponsorship of new black priests and the full inclusion of St. Philip's at diocesan convention, and much else, going on to become one of the most revered black institutions in NYC.
I had read multiple books on St. Philip's before I entered its doors for the first time. On my first visit, the Rev. Canon Terence Alexander Lee warmly introduced himself to me and took time to hear my story. Equally formed by TEC and the AME tradition, Fr. Lee modeled to me what a self-loving, unapologetically black Episcopal priest can look like. His quintessential black church homiletic, as well as his pastoral, strategic, and liturgical leadership all come from a place of being deeply invested in both broader, dominant-culture Anglicanism and black church tradition.
Fr. Lee, like our beloved long-serving Deacon Edwards and many of our lay leaders, both generates and flows out of a black Anglican identity which is one of the hallmarks of St. Philip's. I could point to so many aspects of this, but here are a couple:
We do a “gospel eucharist” once or twice a month, in which we substitute our typically Euro-American hymnody for black hymns from the LEVAS hymnbook or the black church canon more broadly, as well as indigenous or alternative settings for the Gloria and other service pieces. We sing “Thank You, Lord” (LEVAS 232) as the offering is being brought up to be blessed at the altar, and instead of a recession, we gather together in a circle, join hands, and sing “I Love the Lord” (LEVAS 67), lifting our hands all together on the final “I’ll hasten to his throne” (which moved me to tears the first time I experienced it).
Frequently at the beginning of these services, Fr. Lee will finish processing up to the chancel and turn around and begin playing the part of a gospel praise leader— lining out the words, giving instructions to the organist to repeat or vamp certain parts of the song, exhorting people to put down their hymnals, to sing from the heart, to focus on certain phrases or feelings, etc.
Whenever Fr. Lee preaches (whether “gospel” or “non-gospel” Eucharist), it’s in the style of the black folk sermon, which Albert Raboteau describes thus (paraphrased) in “A Fire in the Bones”:
The preacher begins calmly, speaking in conversational prose. She then gradually begins to speak more rapidly and excitedly, and to chant her words in time to a regular beat.
The congregational responses—"Preach it," "Amen, pastor," "Yes, yes, glory!"—reinforce the beat and simultaneously fill in the space left by the preacher's pause for breath. When properly "working," the rhythm of the sermon becomes as inexorable as adrumbeat.
At a certain stage, the preacher's chanting takes on tonality, accompanied by a rise in emotional pitch. The preacher can use familiar stock phrases to encourage congregational engagement and to allow herself time to pause until the next verse comes to her: "Talk back to me if I'm preaching," "I don't believe you hear me tonight,” "Somebody say amen,” etc.
When I read this, I was struck at how well it described and distilled Fr. Lee’s homiletic. I love being in a service where I can hear that style of preaching and then stand up and say the Nicene Creed with my siblings in Christ, and then go into the eucharistic liturgy.
However, while our preacher sits comfortably in this preaching style, we as a congregation are not as well-formed in the corresponding listening style, which I would venture to attribute in large part to our being formed as much, if not more, by the more silent, restrained listening style of TEC more broadly. That is to say, the congregation doesn’t talk back to the preacher at St. Philip's nearly as much as one would expect in a typical black church setting. And without the talk-back, the rhythm, style, and form of the black folk sermon is undermined.
And I think this is emblematic of a larger motif: in being deeply invested in both non-Anglican black church traditions and Anglican traditions, in many cases one ends up dominating the other, or we end up not “performing” either conventionally. Which is not to say that our end result is not beautiful, or that a fuller “cross-cultural” expression can’t be achieved (I very much believe it can), but rather that in many ways it takes twice the work, twice the awareness, and twice the ingenuity.
I see that beauty in the way we pass the peace (long, personal, and with a gospel hymn being played by the organist). The way we retire to the undercroft every week after service for tea and conversation. The way our congregation is made up of folks from all over the African diaspora, perhaps more from West Indian heritage than any other. The way our building houses various Harlem institutions during the week. The way we celebrate the feast of Martin Luther King, Jr. (not on his actual feast day but on or around his secular holiday). The way our members support and even lead our chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians. The way the names of black bishops, freedom fighters, and other saints are called out in sermons. The way diocesan reparations are prioritized in the agenda of our annual meeting. And I could go on.
My own Anglican identity is, similarly, an ongoing challenge and joy in bringing the fullness of my blackness into my love for a tradition that was not constructed with me in mind and yet still has many things that Providence nevertheless crafted just for me. For example, I was formed in rich, passionate extemporaneous prayer in black church throughout college, and I now bring that into the daily office, the spiritual discipline that powerfully (and yet very simply) infused consistency and balance into my devotional life.
I cried just the other day during the “intercessions and thanksgivings” portion while leading evening prayer on Instagram Live (which I do daily—please join sometime at @prayersfromterry). That account, where I write modern-themed collects in the style of the BCP, has become a community whose prayer is shaped by traditional forms and energized by modern, creative expressions. In that moment I was feeling moved by the hundred or so people who had sent me beautiful prayers that they were lifting up on my behalf after I had mentioned a couple days prior that I was having a rough week.
I also always solicit prayer requests in the comment section of the live evening prayer times, and have been blessed to lift people up extemporaneously in that way. This reached a peak when I had the privilege of leading prayer from that account as part of Truth’s Table’s Juneteenth all-day prayer revival, where I was blessed to bring an Episcopal flavor alongside the prayer leadership of 15 other black faith leaders.
In all, I’m immensely grateful to have a parish and a personal devotion that are both deeply invested in both non-Anglican Afro-American spirituality and broader Anglican spirituality. I will continue to observe and imagine how traditional black gospel music, homiletics, and other service elements can be incorporated into an Episcopal eucharist. I hope to become much more versed in the liturgies and practices of other black members of our worldwide communion. And I hope to model and enjoy a spirituality that invites folks into the hard work of bringing all that they are culturally into the space and practice of faith.
This work of integrating multiple spiritualities and identities is, in many ways, characteristic of Anglicanism more broadly. Catholic and Protestant, national and international heritage, orthodoxy and inclusivity—we are constantly called upon to invest deeply in historically distinct categories and to see how beautiful and cohesive our resulting faith and witness can be.
