The National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus is based in New York City.

St. Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart (The Josephites) is a Baltimore-based, interracial society of priests and brothers who work in 45 parishes in African-American communities.

The Rev. Clarence Williams directs the Office for Black Catholic Ministries at the Archdiocese of Detroit and is pastor of St. Anthony Church in Detroit. He is president of the Black Catholic Televangelization Network and has worked nationally and internationally to heal racism and to create dialogue among African-Americans and Latinos. He is a member of the […]

What may houses of worship do to advance political causes or candidates? By Ira Rifkin Freelance Writer The Church at Pierce Creek was a non-denominational, conservative Protestant congregation outside Binghamton, N.Y., until the Internal Revenue Service revoked its tax-exempt status for sponsoring a 1992 newspaper ad attacking then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s stands on abortion and […]

Bernard Richardson is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. He teaches pastoral care and counseling at Howard University School of Divinity, where he also is dean of the Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel.

See the results of an August 2011 survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors by LifeWay Research that details the rewards of their work but also the challenges.

Mellonee V. Burnim is an associate professor of folklore and ethnomusicology at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her focus is black religious music and aesthetics and music of the African Diaspora.

Melva Wilson Costen is an authority on music and worship in the black church. She wrote the widely consulted African American Christian Worship (Abingdon Press, 1993) and In Spirit and In Truth: The Music of African American Worship (Westminster, 2004). She recently retired from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where she was Helmar Emil Nielsen Professor of Music […]

Leo Davis Jr. is artistic director at Gia Publications, Inc. in Chicago, Ill. Davis has a scholarly background in black church worship and can discuss contemporary influences and trends in church music.