COVID-19, Religious Markets, and the Black Church

Abstract

My Facebook timeline lit up in early April. The picture kept appearing in post after post from close friends and respected colleagues. Regardless of whose timeline it came from, the message was the same. As of 3 April, seven leaders of the Church of God in Christ, bishops and superintendents of the Michigan district, had died of COVID-19. A photograph captioned “The Historic First Jurisdiction of Michigan Mourns the Loss of So Great a Cloud of Witnesses” showed the seven men who had all recently died—Supt. Leon R. McPherson, Sr., Supt. Myron E. Left, Bishop Robert L. Harris, Bishop Robert E. Smith, Sr., Supt. Kevelin B. Jones, Sr. Supt. Paul E. Hester, Sr., and Supt. John D. Beverly. By 20 April, the report had grown more ominous. A story posted in Charisma News led with a simple title “Up to 30 COGIC Bishops, Leaders Die from COVID-19” (Spaudo 2020). Death hovered over the church. A tragedy of epic proportions was unfolding in one of the most storied black religious institutions in the country, the nation's first incorporated Pentecostal denomination.1