This article from the UMC just popped up on my blog feed: Study shows how black churches use music. Has some good things in it, but is also pretty awkward on a couple different levels.
Brings up some questions:
How do we gather information in order to better serve a demographic, without oversimplifying or homogenizing? How do celebrate various traditions without over stating how different we actually are (example from article: oral and rote traditions, which are used in white non-denom mega-churches nation-wide)? How do we acknowledge cultural differences without stereotyping or categorizing?
Do some of the characterizations here come across weird, or am I being hypersensitive?
See what you think. Discuss.
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The article did feel very newsy. I think it would have helped if the article included more anecdotes and provided a few more personal stories about the attendants. You know the anecdotes, if the reporter really wanted to get past cultural barriers, could be really good and provide more of a connection with the trend of black churches than a lot of the information and lingo explaining that the article provided.
ReplyDeleteSome of the sections in the article made it seem as though "black churches" were being held under a microscope for the benefit of a sociologist or someone recording a "new" civilization. But then, it's a hard topic for newspapers to cover well. Some questions could even be considered offensive.
Yet considering the news article about people leaving Christianity, I do think that the news media could do better with this topic. Especially as the topic could be really rich in terms of stories.