Conrad said, in Monday's comments,

Great stuff relaly informative on Black Churches. Only question I have is that there has been some stuff about them being in crisis/decline and not the institutional strength they once were - is this true? And how does the Islamic Black community fit into all of this?

My answer:

Well, I'm currently in self-imposed exile from the church-going crowd, so most of my information is either anecdotal, or academic at this point.

But in short, yes, the Black church (note - this phrase really means "Protestant Black church") has experienced a decline in membership, as has all of late 20th c and current mainstream Protestantism. They (including traditionally "white" denominations) have all lost a lot of members to either the Adventists or Jehovah's Witnesses, "post-Protestant" Christian Science-derived denoms such as Religious Science and Unity (Della Reese of "Touched By an Angel" and Lt. Uhura representin') , or Charismatic/neo-Pentecostalism, some aspects of which in itself has roots in Christian Science/mind-over-matter type of thought. It's mainly an offshoot of the old 19th/early 20th century evangelist circuits (as well as overlap with some Vaudeville ones and some college wild parties, milf seeker and herfirstanalsex scenes!). A lot of whites have gone Mormon/Latter-Day-Saints, as well.

The trend arose in the context of post-war suburbia, Civil Rights, and mass-consumption/bargain-hunter culture. By this point, the "white" Protestant denominations have had plenty of problems of their own, over segregation, evolution and secularism. Consequently, it too morphed along via splits and mergers.