Customer Reviews

Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood (Morality and Society Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the most important study of black urban religious life in a long time, and University of Chicago sociologist Omar McRoberts gives us a lot to think about here.

The book focuses on Four Corners, a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Boston composed of Holiness-Pentecostal-Apostolic and "mainline" (Baptist, Catholic, and United Methodist) congregations but also numerous black Caribbean and Hispanic immigrant churches. There are so many churches in the neighborhood that it is what McRoberts calls a "religious district"--a depressed area where vacant commercial spaces provide space for religious institutions looking for property with cheap rent. One might expect that the sheer religious presence of all these churches would help turn a poor neighborhood around quickly, but apparently most of the people coming on Sunday are commuters from other parts of the city who feel little responsibility for the area their churches happen to be in. That leaves community activists, local politicians, and the efforts of some concerned ministers and laity to try and save Four Corners. It is a story that may be found in similar urban areas all across the country, and Streets of Glory helps us understand their particular nature, problems, and possible future.

McRoberts is a tremendous scholar and writer--an authoritative and imaginative new voice in urban sociology, and a keen observer of the highest order. This is ethnography at its best, and it will be a classic on many reading lists for years to come...

It's difficult to express how important a contribution Streets of Glory is to the sociology of religion as well as to black religion. He really helped us understand how the black church relates to the vicissitudes of urban life in ways that were previously unexplored. He reveals how a black urban locality can be saturated with churches and yet fail miserably in disabusing the socio-economic challenges of that locality because many of those churches don't identify with the community. In other words, they're choosing localities based on low overhead, so they don't invest in or develop solidarity with the surrounding community. If we were looking to the church to solve urban problems, McRoberts let's us know that maybe we better look elsewhere. This is a monumental contribution and is why many people are referring to McRoberts as the next "C.Eric Lincoln.

This is essential reading in any study or class in the sociology of religion more broadly put, or especially the "Black Church" or Black Liberation Theology. McRoberts demonstrates the vitality and variety of at least this 'corner' of African-American church life.

How the author of this book can take something so rich, dramatic, lush, vibrant, controversial, dynamic, powerful, human, and compelling -- black urban religious life -- and write a book that is boring, dead, overly analytical, and hyper-dull is nothing short of astounding.
No doubt this is top-notch sociological scholarship. But does it also have to be so dry ? If you like academic journal articles, you'll love this book . If you want an engrossing, engaging, enthographic-like read which really draws you in to a community, which lets you get to know these people as thinking and feeling humans, which takes you into the actual drama of urban religous life, you'll be let down. Yes, the author reveals some interesting scholarly conclusions. But that's about it.