Investing in Resilience: A Comparative Study of Black Church Survival in Underserved Detroit

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The whole article is presented with a slightly atypical structure compared to what is usual in the journal. Perhaps a revision of the form would be important.

Repetition of the study's method and objectives should be avoided. These are ideas that are repeated several times, making the text heavier/more ‘doughy’, while at the same time detracting from the strength of the study carried out.

I think it would be more productive to present the results of the interview in a more indirect way (it would also be easier to standardize the style of the articles in the journal). In this sense, in my opinion, it would be better to focus on interpretative conclusions, rather than presenting a list of phrases said during the interviews.

Furthermore, it would be important to develop these interpretative conclusions and the final conclusion for further theological development and studies in the religious sciences.

Author Response

Please see the attachment for changes. I have also attached an updated draft of the article with yellow highlighted areas that have been changed. 

Thank you for the review. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article compares the different theological perspectives of two historically Black churches in Detroit, Historic King Solomon Baptist Church and Greater King Solomon Baptist Church, in order to give guidance on church readiness for various types of community partnerships. The author concludes that the two models seen in these churches, DuBoisian and Weberian, have their place; Black churches are not monolithic. The author gives five helpful criteria for categorizing whether a church is ready for a community partnership. The author clearly considers Historic King Solomon, with its DeBoisian methods, to be a superior model of a church ready for community partnership.

The article has a helpful structure and is well-written. The Theoretical frameworks of Dubois and Weber are interesting choices for the author's methods. Understanding that the author is critiquing the social mission of churches, they might consider the counter-argument of the theological imperative of evangelism to the social gospel imperative for the church. I think they've done a good job here, but it did occur to me as I was reading that someone might object to that missing piece.

I only have a few suggestions.

Lines 213-215, sentence fragment: "Instead, influenced by evangelical models that prioritize inward-facing, individualistic frameworks of success, frequently shaped by the aesthetics and growth metrics of megachurch culture, rather than communal engagement and prophetic witness."

Protestant should be capitalized when referring to the denomination—it is a proper name. An example can be found on line 242, though the author might need to do a search and replace to make sure they have found all examples of this.

Line 350 “at KSMBC Designation” doesn’t make sense at the end of the sentence.

Lines 484-487 Is there a quote from a member of the church to support this? It might be more effective to support “spiritual focus.”

Also, just a suggestion for the interviews section: are there more than one quote per church to support these assertions? It might be more persuasive with more evidence. 

Lines 929-933 that give an explanation/critique of Greater King Solomon’s impact ignores the spiritual dimension of Weber’s theory. There is something to be said about the mission of a church ministering to its members’ spiritual growth, since that is central to Christianity (bringing people to a relationship with God/Jesus). This is missing from this paper. The author's point is taken, that in focusing on this aspect, Greater King Solomon misses the mark on ministering to the community around it, which is another aspect of this same goal. Just a sentence about their focus on this mission & why they focus on it would not go amiss.

It might be helpful to know how the author came to adopt the five criteria in the implications section. Were they drawn from the author's information gathering? Explain. 

Suggested for conclusion: perhaps more clearly state that Historic King Solomon church is the model of the type of church that the author is recommending. (line 983)

Author Response

Please see the response to review in the file attached. I also attached a copy of the new article with yellow highlight so that you could see the changes. 

thanks,

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf