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Abstract
This dissertation uses a theory of modernization known as secularization theory to explore the relationship between the black Protestant church and black secular culture in the post-civil rights era. The thesis is that the demise of legal discrimination has permitted secular aspects of black communal life to achieve more independence, allowing the church to no longer have to function in a variety of nonreligious roles. The concept of secularization theory used in this study is differentiation theory, which conceives of the process of modernization as entailing an emancipation of the different social "spheres" (e.g. the state, the economy, etc.) from their traditional dependence on religious institutions, and the increased autonomization and specialization of each sphere, including religion, within its own arena of activity.
After discussing the historically pervasive influence of the black church, and describing how this influence gradually succumbed to increasingly higher levels of differentiation in black life between emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement, the dissertation probes the contemporary relationship between the black church and black secular culture by looking at the experience of St. Philip's Episcopal Church. Located in the village of Harlem, St. Philip's was once a leading provider of nonreligious services, but today these services are fully autonomous. There were a number of causes for this autonomy, but at least some of them have to do with shifts caused by the Civil Rights Movement, and by increased black assimilation.
