As a practicing agnostic, I’ve often wondered why the Civil Rights Movement began in the church. Christianity has always seemed antithetical to Black liberation to me. After all, this is the white man’s religion, with a white Jesus foisted upon our people during the degradation of slavery. I’ve resented my people’s devotion to a God we wouldn’t even know if not for our conquest.
This question was cycling through my mind when I stepped off with the members and supporters of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church for their 54th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Love March through the streets of East Rock, the state’s longest-running celebration of Dr. King’s life and achievements.
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Allan Appel |
Nov 13, 2023 9:05 am
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The congregants of Pitts Chapel United Free Will Baptist Church are not only raising their historic sanctuary’s roof in dancing, singing, and exuberant prayer as they do every Sunday — now they are also able to fix it.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Jan 16, 2023 6:30 pm
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A former New Haven-based faith leader returned to Dixwell Avenue Monday to lift up Martin Luther King Jr.‘s legacy of church-led progressive political action.
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Allan Appel |
Oct 31, 2022 11:08 am
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Josue Ortiz sounded the shofar, but it wasn’t the Jewish Day of Atonement. He wasn’t even in a synagogue.
The site was the Estrella Resplandeciente de Jacob, the Radiant Star of Jacob Church in Fair Haven, where the spirit and service of long-time pastors Javier and Shari Diaz were trumpeted, along with the help of an official certificate presented by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal.
New Haven needs a new plan — and new leadership — in order to improve abysmal student reading levels.
The Greater New Haven Clergy Association issued that plea Wednesday during a press conference at which Newhallville pastors laid into the Board of Education, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) administrators, and the mayor after a recent report showed that 84 percent of third-graders are reading below grade level.
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Maya McFadden |
Aug 1, 2022 9:36 am
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The nation’s oldest African American United Congregational Church is celebrating 200 years of being rooted in community service, social justice, and humanitarian efforts.
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Olivia Gross |
Jul 11, 2022 8:55 am
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Forty parishioners from Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church threw a party Sunday morning — for their church, and for the 98th birthday of a parishioner named Milton Collins, who has ping-ponged and tap-danced his way around the world and back.
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Allan Appel |
Mar 27, 2022 5:02 pm
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As we emerge –- we dearly hope -– from a mask-filled pandemic, one of the most important values to which we aspire is seeing and being seen, in the fullest spiritual sense.
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Maya McFadden |
Jan 24, 2022 2:11 pm
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The legacy and face of Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Church’s retired leader Elijah Davis Jr. will now remain in the church even on days when his physical presence is absent.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 11, 2021 1:10 pm
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After winning the second season of NBC’s The Voice and touring for a decade with Alicia Keys, Jeremiah Jermaine Paul realized his true life — singing about “building your church from the ground up” from his own pulpit at Sunday worship services.
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Maya McFadden |
Sep 20, 2021 8:20 am
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En route to leading his last service as pastor of Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Church, Elijah Davis Jr. accidentally left his bible in the limo. So he ditched his planned sermon and preached a word about fishermen and loyalty.
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Allan Appel |
Apr 10, 2020 5:27 pm
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Friedrich Nietsche, the man who famously declared that God is dead, also said he might have become a good Christian, as was the case with that other former pagan, renegade, and convert St. Augustine, had Jesus’ disciples only been better examples of human beings.
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Emily Hays |
Mar 22, 2020 10:59 pm
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The congregation of Agape Christian Center joined together in song as usual on Sunday morning. Instead of repeating after the pastor in person, however, many of the voices chimed in through Facebook Live.
Thomas Jackson doesn’t see much difference between a good sermon and good journalism. Both, in his view, strive to make people see connections more deeply and build community.
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Sam Gurwitt |
Oct 16, 2019 4:39 pm
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At a Jummah prayer service, leaders of Dixwell Avenue’s Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center made an announcement that heralds a new chapter for the Muslim community: the center will honor a Nation of Islam leader at its annual banquet in November.
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Maya McFadden |
Jul 15, 2019 7:39 am
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“It’s not home but it’s special,” said Alton Johnson who attended and performed at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church for its annual State of South Carolina Gospel Brunch Fundraiser.
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Rick Lessard and Lauren McGrath |
Jul 5, 2019 8:52 am
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Almost every Friday evening, the Grace and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church at 2927 Dixwell Ave. gives back to the Hamden community by hosting “Dinner for a Dollar.” The tradition has been going on for eight years and is aimed at helping people get a nutritious, cheap and good tasting meal.
Days after an opposing campaign attacked his wife and her fellow federal prosecutors as Trump co-conspirators, mayoral candidate Justin Elicker took to the pulpit Sunday to urge New Haveners to transcend “political rhetoric” and “come together as a city.”