Increasingly, churches of the AIC are finding homes within the United States as the migration of Christians from Africa has rapidly escalated in recent decades. Those churches are joined by Christian immigrants from traditional Protestant denominations in Africa, such as the Presbyterian Church in Ghana, the Methodist Church in Sierra Leone and countless others. But these Christians as well bring textures of their traditions deeply shaped by African culture.
Nowhere have the stories of such congregations been told more vividly than in Word Made Global, by Mark R. Gornik. To focus the impact of African Christianity in New York City, Gornik relates in depth the stories of three African migrant congregations that he studied extensively for five years: the Redeemed Christian Church of God International Chapel, in Brooklyn; the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, in Harlem; and the Church of the Lord (Aladura), in the Bronx.
Gornik tells in illuminating ways the stories of their ministerial calling and formation, their worship life, their deep spirituality, their ministries and their sense of missionary vocation, and suggests broader lessons and conclusions for the impact of African congregations on American Christianity. Supported by meticulous research, this is a hallmark contribution, pioneering in examining congregations so often neglected in the study of religious life in the United States. If you live in one of the major urban areas of the United States, it’s likely that there’s a congregation belonging to the African Instituted Churches near you.
Unintended Ecclesiological Consequences
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stood at the Statue of Liberty and signed the Immigration and Naturalization Act, called the Hart-Celler Act, a major reform of U.S. immigration law. At the signing ceremony, however, he said, “This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions.” The president could not have been more mistaken.
Up until that time, immigration policy in the United States was based on a national origins quota system that in retrospect could only be called blatantly racist. Of those entering the United States, 82 percent were from northern and western Europe. Africans and Asians were excluded, and southern European immigration was severely limited. In the era of the civil rights movement, new attention was focused on how our immigration laws contradicted the principles of equality enshrined in the nation’s founding.
But other motives were in play, including the desire to increase immigration from other regions of Europe, such as Greece and Italy, a cause embraced by the Democrat party. The new law eliminated race and national origin as bases for immigration, intending to put all nations on an equal footing. Quotas were established—170,000 for the Western hemisphere and 120,000 for the Eastern hemisphere. The law also placed a priority on the reuniting of families as well as on admitting those with needed skills.
No one, it’s fair to say, envisioned the consequences. In pressing for passage of immigration reform, political pressures combined with commonly accepted assumptions, and politicians downplayed its potential effects. Robert Kennedy, as attorney general, gave this assurance to a House subcommittee: “I would say for the Asia-Pacific Triangle it [immigration] would be approximately 5,000, Mr. Chairman, after which immigration from that source would virtually disappear; 5,000 immigrants would come the first year, but we do not expect that there would be any great influx after that.”
In fact, the 1965 act was a watershed in Asian immigration, as well as opening up the flow of nonwhite immigrants from Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean. The provision for uniting families had a particularly strong effect on Asian immigration. In 1965, the Asian American population in the United States was about .05 percent of the total. By 2002, 7.3 million Asians had arrived in the United States, significantly exceeding Robert Kennedy’s estimate.
Provisions allowing for needed skills also produced unexpected consequences. As sociologist Stephen Klineberg said, “It never occurred to anyone, literally, that there were going to be African doctors, Indian engineers, Chinese computer programmers who’d be able, for the first time in the 20th century, to immigrate to America.”
According to 2010 U.S. Census data, 17.3 million Asian Americans now are residents of the United States, constituting 5.6 percent of the population; 50 percent of those over the age of 25 have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 28 percent of the overall population that age. In the last decade, the Asian American population grew by 46 percent, a faster rate than any other racial group. The Census Bureau estimates this group will grow to 40 million by 2050.
The Christian community in the United States has been notably affected by this influx of Asian immigrants. While the Census Bureau does not compile data on religious affiliation of such racial groups, sociologists have evaluated data from various surveys. One sociologist of religion, Jerry Park, doing a major evaluation in 2009 looking at various surveys, indicated that 44 percent of all Asian Americans are Christian. Of these, 43.3 percent are evangelical Protestant, 17.1 percent are mainline Protestant, and 36.6 percent are Catholic.
The Korean American community, totaling some 1.7 million, is estimated to be about 80 percent Christian, compared to about 30-40 percent of the population in Korea. Many Korean immigrants arriving as non-Christians are converted. The prayerful power of Korean congregations is well known, with numbers of Korean congregations growing in mainline and evangelical Christian denominations. Others are in Baptist churches, remain independent or are part of denominations comprised of Korean congregations in the United States, such as the Korean Presbyterian Church in America.
