The Negro's church,.

40

The Negro's Church

Academic Training Less Emphasized in the Negro Ministry
In spite of the age and the historic importance of the Negro
ministry, and of the large number of men now in it, the
academic training of the ministry has undoubtedly been less
emphasized than that of other leading professions. This is
> certainly less true today than formerly, because the Negroes
f held more generally than they now do to the belief of their
day that the minister was specially "called" of God, and that
if God "called" him, he needed little or no academic preparation. It was believed that God would see to it that the
| "anointed one" was in every respect equipped for his task.
Aside from this belief, there were urgent church needs to be
i met without delay; and further, the opportunity for academic
|! preparation was not always available to the Negro minister.
These are the chief reasons why the academic training of
Negro ministers is lower than that of white ministers.
In an analysis and interpretation of data collected by the
1926 Government Census of Religious Bodies, C. Luther Fry
shows that 80 per cent. of white urban ministers and only 38
per cent. of Negro urban ministers are graduates of either
college or seminary; and that 47 per cent. of white rural ministers and only 17 per cent. of rural Negro ministers are
graduates of either college or seminary. Of the white ministers, 33 per cent. and of the Negro ministers, only 7.4 per
cent., claimed to be graduates of both college and seminary.2
A comparison of the Government data with the findings of
this study will be made later on in the chapter.
Academic Preparation Is Not All
In studying the academic preparation of the city pastors
included in this report, it should be clearly understood that
the efficiency of a minister cannot be wholly determined by
his academic preparation. By almost any standard of measFry, C. Luther, The U. S. Looks At Its Churches (New York: Institute of
Social and Religious Research, 1930), pp. 64-66.