Rise of the Neoliberal Black Church

Abstract— This paper makes the case that the deradicalization of African American religious institutions and the significant implications of this deradicalization often has been misdiagnosed through a failure to fully account for the influence of economic ideology on the formation and operation of African American religious institutions. While there has always been an economic critiques offered within historical and theological interrogations of African American religious institutions, those interrogations have most often focused on an examination of the instrumental value of African American religious institutions on economic participation. Research has often challenged whether African American religious institutions have been efficacious in facilitating increasing economic participation within the communities these institutions serve. What this paper offers is a consideration of African American religious institutions as the objects of economic forces and an examination of the endogenous theology of neoliberalism for understanding and responding to the complicity of some Black churched in the economic exploitation of African American poor communities.