Christ Church is so symbolic to the birth of America that it's called the Nation's Church.
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Christ Church senior pastor, the Rev. Samantha Vincent-Alexander, leads a Blessing of the Animals ceremony in honor of St. Francis in Philadelphia, on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. Congregants pray at Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia during a service on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. Mother Bethel AME First Lady Leslie Tyler, front pew, worships with congregants and members of the Alpha Kappa Sorority at a service in Philadelphia on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024.
People look at a banner on a home in support of Kamala Harris in her run for the presidency across from Mother Bethel AME Church Philadelphia, on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. The Christ Church steeple, financed and built through a lottery spearheaded by Benjamin Franklin, rises into the sky in Philadelphia on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. Congregant Andy Halstead prays during a service at Philadelphias Christ Church on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024.
Two churches, across the centuries. Generations after their birth in this nation first envisioned in Philadelphia, both churches continue to serve as the spiritual home for hundreds in the city. Today's list of divisive issues is long: from abortion and immigration to taxes, climate change and the wars abroad. It’s also“I think things have changed: Slavery is abolished. The Civil Rights Act was put in place. But still, deep down, the denizens of the United States haven’t really come together,” says Keith Matthews, 61, a Mother Bethel AME parishioner. “There’s still a lot of hatred and misunderstanding amongst the races.
“We tend to think that the early American republic was a time of great unity, but, like today, the political culture was deeply polarized,” says John Fea, a professor of American history at Messiah University in Pennsylvania. “We had people who were loyalists and people who supported independence, and the clergy at the time had to find a way to keep the congregation together.”
Methodism was the fastest growing denomination in America in the 1790s. But some Methodist Episcopal Churches still segregated Black worshippers during services to the upstairs galleries. This prompted free Black Americans to start their own congregation.Its founder, the Rev. Richard Allen, was born into slavery in Philadelphia in 1760 before buying his freedom in Delaware before he was 20. He returned to the city in the 1780s and became a minister.
“Certainly, we’ve made progress," says Tyler, citing Kamala Harris' campaign to become the country's first Black female president. But he also believes that much more needs to be done to bridge America’s racial inequality and he worries about the potential of another Trump presidency. The AME Church, he says, has not “outlived its usefulness.”
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