PBS Documentary 'The Black Church' Paints Unique and Spiritual History Through Gospel Music

Photo courtesy of PBS.

(REVIEW) “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song” — a four-hour docuseries hosted by Harvard professor and journalist Henry Louis Gates, Jr. — will air on PBS on Feb. 16-17.

It features interviews from Oprah, Rev. Al Sharpton and John Legend among others and releases alongside a companion novel authored by Gates that includes an epilogue where Gates discusses his personal faith journey and the Holy Spirit.  

The Black church as an entity has always been a complex epicenter: the home of political and Civil Rights movements, the stage for emerging music styles, a center of theological debate, the primary community center for Black Americans and much more. 

The documentary is a great success, particularly in the midst of Black History Month, because it is thorough enough to explore all these roles. It shows the crucial role of the Black church in Black identity and culture, and it presents a comprehensive portrait of the way the Black church has unapologetically shaped and participated in American culture. 

The film opens the story of the Black church with the slave trade. Most slaves came from areas of West Africa and brought with them a mix of religious and traditional practices, including indigenous beliefs like ancestor worship, Islam and even some Catholicism. But many American settlers insisted their slaves convert to Protestant traditions. It is a common issue discussed with Christianity and race — that the faith which claims freedom, equality and love was forced upon many slaves seems hypocritical — but the documentary takes a position that the faith has been more than reclaimed.

“African Americans adopted Christianity, but I also think they adapted Christianity,“ said Rev. Yolanda Pierce of Howard University. “They made it their own. They created it so that it could provide for them: something that was nurturing, something that provided catharsis, something that provided hope.” 

This set the community up to be unique from the start. It would be a church that created depictions of Black Jesus, invented its own styles of worship and served as a refuge for its members. 

More than unique, though, this set the church community up to be one that was identity-defining: worship was often the only community slaves were allowed with minimal interference from slave owners. It was often also their only comfort. 

In the Antebellum South, some of the first Gospel music was created by slaves turning Bible passages into songs to sing while they worked. 

This information set the stage for the way the film presented most of its important messages — through music. It makes the documentary plenty accessible to viewers. After all, what’s more recognizable than the moving, soulful sound of a Gospel tune?

It also adds a creative element that makes the documentary genuinely fun to watch. Apart from several Gospel backtracks, interviewees frequently broke out into the songs of their youth or of their church; sometimes, Gates even joined in. 

Musician John Legend talks about how he was raised in a Pentecostal church where speaking in tongues was common. Today he’s no longer a practicing Christian. But the church was both an inspiration for and incubator of his music. He attributes a large part of his style to his Gospel upbringing and said he wouldn’t have even become a musician unless he’d been raised in a charismatic Black church. 

John Legend with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Photo courtesy of PBS.

The charismatic movement itself was given a focus, with explanation of “ecstatic worship” and popular revivals. There is emphasis here that Black Christians have always been emotionally and spiritually connected to God through their worship, naturally with a strong connection to the Holy Spirit. 

Gospel — and the Black church — evolved through the centuries. In the Civil Rights era, it played as large a role within the church as it did in marches. Protestors would often take “Jesus” and replace it with “freedom,” in the lyrics of popular worship songs, reinforcing the role of the Gospel in the fight for equal rights. 

A briefly discussed point is also the influence of Islam in the church. It can be seen still in some historic churches, where Arabic is engraved at the end of pews. It’s often discussed in relation to Malcom X, the Muslim minister and Civil Rights activist who is often seen as the foil of Martin Luther King, Jr. for their differing views on non-violence and protest. 

King and the importance of the Civil Rights movement is a large focus, as often the religion and politics of Black Christians are shown to intertwine. The documentary ends by showing the modern Black Lives Matter movement; it portrays the movement positively despite ideological conflict the movement has encountered with some Christians. 

The film also discusses the support of Black churches for the Social Gospel movement — which normally aligns with more progressive politics and takes the call of the Gospel to implement social reform in economics, prisons and other issues. So it’s no surprise to hear in the documentary that Black churches have always been places where communities go in times of need.

In its modern portions, “The Black Church” takes an in-depth, inward look at how much of its theology clashes with modern values, including acceptance of LGBTQ+ members, involvement of women in leading congregations, an early condemnation of hip hop and rap, prosperity Gospel teachings and more. In these portions, the documentary is fully transparent with its viewers about the issues within the church. It makes the series genuinely more meaningful as a piece of television. 

“Do you think that we’re right to talk about an entity called the Black church?” Gates asked Bishop Charles E. Blake, Sr.

Yes, he says. And why is that?

“It was involved in the lives of its people in the ways White churches were not.”

In the transparent and thorough way “The Black Church” displays the history of Black Christianity as a unique and spiritual community of worshippers, it isn’t hard to see how that’s true. 

“The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song” will premiere on PBS at 9 p.m. ET on Feb. 16 and 17. It can be streamed for free on the PBS app.

Jillian Cheney is a Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged who loves consuming good culture and writing about it. She also reports on American Protestantism and evangelical Christianity. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.