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[Episcopal News Service] St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, a historically Black parish in Raleigh, North Carolina, will host its first Hip Hop Mass on Feb. 23 as part of its series of educational and celebratory events honoring Black History Month. “We will be bringing hip-hop – which has a tremendous influence worldwide but has not historically been a part of church worship – to the altar of God, which means a part of me and a part of many other people who were either formed by hip-hop [or] hip-hop-slash-rap is an important part of their current life,” the Rev. Jemonde Taylor, rector of St. Ambrose, told Episcopal News Service. February is Black History Month, the annual acknowledgment of Black Americans’ accomplishments and contributions, including music, to the making of the modern-day United States. The 10:15 a.m. Eastern service is scheduled to be livestreamed. Wearing attire representative of culture – country of origin, ancestral tribal affiliation or hip-hop fashion – is encouraged. After the Hop Hop Mass concludes, worshippers are welcome to stay at St. Ambrose for a potluck luncheon beginning at noon, followed by a Black History Month quiz bowl. “Including different genres of music can maybe help with reaching out to populations of people who may otherwise feel left out of traditional church settings,” Ginnae Koon, St. Ambrose’s bassist, told ENS. Loosely using the “Hip Hop Prayer Book” – written by the Rev. Timothy Holder, rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Elizabethtown, Tennessee – as an outline, the Hip Hop Mass will follow a standard Episcopal liturgy and incorporate rapping from young adult parishioners, live music and a professional DJ. It’s intended to be both celebratory and educational. “I’ve had this question for a long time – when did Christ become not cool?” Christian Green, St. Ambrose’s music director, told ENS. “My hope is that this Hip Hop Mass can be a huge invitation to the church that magnetically draws people in, because that’s what hip-hop beats do. That’s why people blast their cars with the music any time of day when they go to places, bopping their heads and moving their bodies. Body movement is healthy, and worship doesn’t need to be stiff.” Imani Nia is a young adult spoken-word artist and parishioner of St. Ambrose who’s helping Taylor prepare the Hip Hop Mass’ sermon. She told ENS that music and musical expression are important facets of African American culture and should be included in Black History Month discussions. “When people talk about Black History Month, they tend to focus on ‘I Have a Dream,’ and the Montgomery bus boycott, but they’re focusing on the same things every year. At the end of the day, you’re not teaching anybody anything new,” Nia told ENS. “If you pull somebody over on the street and ask them what’s the first think that comes to mind when they think about African American music, they’re most likely going to say either R&B or hip-hop.” Hip-hop, formerly known as disco rap, stems from several historically African American musical genres, including funk, jazz, rock and roll, soul, scat, R&B, disco and gospel. It emerged as a music genre and culture in 1973 at a party in Bronx borough of New York City. Then-18-year-old Clive Campbell – known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc – disc jockeyed for a party his sister hosted using a self-made “breaking” technique. He’d isolate the unaccompanied rhythm section emphasizing the downbeat, or “break,” from one funk or soul record, then immediate play the break from another record and continue switching from one break to another on his two turntables. Campbell also developed a technique on his turntables where he’d loop a single break with two copies of the same record, which he referred to as a “merry-go-round.” These techniques formed the foundation of hip-hop and the art of rapping. “I remember sitting in the back of the school bus, doing Run-DMC rap, beatboxing with other people on the school bus. When I learned to drive, listening to Wu-Tang Clan and Biggie Smalls (Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G.), 2Pac on the radio and CD player, being in college and going to college parties with hip-hop music,” Taylor said. “Hip-hop is poetry, and these artists would be lauded as geniuses in different contexts.” Hip-hop has significantly evolved over the last 52 years and now includes many distinct subgenres –gangsta rap, such as “Who Shot Ya?” by the Notorious B.I.G.; crunk, such as “What U Gon’ Do,” by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz; political hop-hop, like N.W.A.’s famous protest song from 1988 calling out police brutality toward Black and brown people; trap, such as “Bodak Yellow,” by Cardi B; and others. Globally, hip-hop has influenced other art and entertainment forms, fashion, language, technology and much more. “Just like any music genre, hip-hop goes through different stages and eras, from the political side to the commercial,” Brandon Mitchell, St. Ambrose’ percussionist, told ENS. It’s good to have songs with deep meaning, and sometimes people just want to feel the vibe that they’re dancing at the club. It’s a balance.” St. Ambrose’s Hip Hop Mass won’t be the first of its kind at an Episcopal parish, but mixing hip-hop music with Episcopal liturgy isn’t common. In the early 2000s, Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania hosted annual Hip Hop Masses. Kurtis Walker, known professionally by his stage name Kurtis Blow, deejayed the 2004 worship service. Walker, best known for his song “The Breaks,” is the first rapper to sign with a major record label. The “Hip Hop Prayer Book,” originally published in 2004 by Church Publishing Inc., translated the Eucharist and Scripture using hip-hop vernacular. Everyone involved with organizing the Hip Hop Mass carefully curated the songs to showcase different eras and based on how well they mesh with liturgy. For example, the sermon will incorporate the baseline of the song “Power,” by Rapsody featuring Kendrick Lamar and Lance Skiiiwalker. “If […]

BETHLEHEM, PA, February 21, 2025: Today, Moravian University announced that it has named Christian Rice its new Vice President and Dean of the School of Theology. Rice brings more than two decades of experience in higher education and theological education to this role. Prior to joining Moravian University, Rice worked at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA. Rice […]

A pilgrimage to key sites in the lives of John and Charles Wesley yields insights and inspiration to carry on their work of social and personal holiness.

The Rev. Éric Kalumba is on a mission to spread the Gospel and establish new United Methodist churches across the island.

[Religion News Service] On Feb. 8, the diocesan council of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas officially welcomed Resurrection, South Austin, a church planted by the Anglican Church in North America, which itself was formed by former Episcopalians who broke away from The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in 2009 over disagreements about marriage for same-sex couples and the ordination of women. The second ACNA parish to enter The Episcopal Church, Resurrection South Austin doesn’t represent a return to Episcopalianism: It was founded in 2015, years after the ACNA split, and only a small percentage of its congregants are former Episcopalians. This fits the profile of most in ACNA’s pews: Though data is sparse, the churches that have prospered most seem to be those founded since the split. “It would be difficult for me to name one person who had been in The Episcopal Church,” said the Rev. Shawn McCain Tirres, Resurrection South Austin’s founder and rector. That includes all of Resurrection South Austin’s clergy, he added. Like many ACNA churches, it was full of people who grew up in a conservative evangelical Christian church and sought out Anglicanism after becoming frustrated with the evangelical tradition. Over time, the parishioners began to realize that the kind of Anglicanism they wanted to practice would be a better fit in The Episcopal Church than ACNA. When the question was put to the church membership in 2023, about 120 people — 85% — voted to disaffiliate from ACNA. Some parishioners and at least one priest at Resurrection who didn’t want to join The Episcopal Church founded a new ACNA church instead, Immanuel Anglican. (Requests for comment from leadership there went unanswered.) “I’m excited,” Texas Bishop Suffragan Kai Ryan said. “They have a strong ministry in South Austin, and they gather and form people in Christian discipleship. They will bring a lot of gifts,” she added. In an essay in The Living Church, McCain Tirres cited ACNA’s “treatment of women, people of color and sexual minorities” as key reasons for moving. “And, while within contemporary Anglican politics there’s a tendency to fixate on matters of sexuality (important as they are), I want to resist this oversexualized reductionism.” In an interview, McCain Tirres further explained that his congregants “wanted rootedness and wanted to feel connected to something ancient and global” in joining the long-established form of American Anglicanism. He described the parish as “low-key high church,” which broadly refers to a greater emphasis on the Eucharist and ritual, as well as more traditional music. McCain Tirres said that for him it also means making it clear the church welcomes children and their noise and desire to wander around during the service as a blessing to the community. He said the sacramental character of The Episcopal Church has particular appeal to those who grew up in an evangelical tradition. “The good news about the sacraments is whether or not you feel it, or whether or not you believe it, God is there. That’s reassuring in a world of doubts. I don’t have to have it all together. The community holds me in faith even when my faith is shaking,” he said. But their parish isn’t just about the liturgy. Rez, as congregants call their church, is involved with El Buen Samaritano (The Good Samaritan), a Diocese of Texas ministry that provides services to the poor. As an ACNA church, McCain Tirres said, the parish felt it could not fully express its desire to serve those in need. “Reverence for God without reverence for the poor doesn’t make sense in the Christian faith,” he said. “Some of the conservative evangelicals would flag that as social justice or ‘woke.’ It transgresses something fundamental to white evangelicalism,” he said, adding that some ACNA Christians had called the parish “Marxist” or “woke.” “We’re a part of this (Episcopal) diocesan family because we found people who are doing the same things we’re doing, ministries of reconciliation without reservation,” he said. Resurrection, South Austin’s, former diocese, the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others, declined to comment on the church’s departure. Tashara Angelle, a parishioner who is now a seminarian for the Diocese of Texas, said Resurrection’s care for the poor was what drew her. “We came because we loved Rez, and how they were seeking justice for the marginalized,” she said. Angelle, who is Black, said these concerns were central to her faith. “The Black church is very involved in social justice issues, and we knew we had to be somewhere that was a priority, and part of your faith. It’s not just Rez, but The Episcopal Church, that’s a thing they care about. There’s a very spiritual side,” she said. Over time, she said of Resurrection, “it became obvious we were moving away from the ACNA,” noting, “We felt a little bit like we were on an island.” Though the congregants didn’t know much about The Episcopal Church, she said, “There’s so much community, and it’s so stabilized, and there’s other like-minded clergy,” which was not the case in ACNA. “It feels really good to come into something that’s settled.” Having attended Church of God in Christ, Baptist and nondenominational churches, Angelle said her own spiritual path had begun to track toward Anglicanism and the priesthood after she encountered Anglican authors, such as Esau McCaulley, a Black evangelical who had become an ACNA priest. She praised McCain Tirres for supporting and developing her call to ministry, which wasn’t an option for women in the local ACNA churches. Joel Yu and his family had been Presbyterians until they began attending Resurrection about a year ago. “It’s a bit of an unexpected turn for us as a family that had been Presbyterian for a long time,” he said. “We wouldn’t have thought about being Episcopalian a few years ago, but we’re really excited.” Yu said he appreciated the episcopal, or bishop-centered, polity that gives the denomination its name. While ACNA has bishops, the denomination’s […]

Read the letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio from Faith groups urging release of funds for refugee resettlement and international humanitarian aid.

The post NCC Leads Letter to Secretary Rubio from Faith Groups on Refugees, International Aid first appeared on National Council of Churches.

The World Council of Churches Office of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation, and the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, during an annual meeting held in Rome from 17-20 February

As Serbia becomes an increasingly crucial waypoint for refugees and migrants—including those fleeing Ukraine—urgent challenges such as lack of shelter, healthcare, and legal protections continue to put thousands at risk. With limited institutional support and growing migration complexities, CWS and its partners are stepping in to provide emergency relief, legal aid, and long-term solutions to help displaced individuals find safety, ... Read More

As 24 February marks the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay noted with sadness that the war continues without any immediate signs of an end. 

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay strongly condemned the “abhorrent act of parading human remains” during the recent handover of bodies from Hamas in Gaza.