c. 1997 Religion News Service
NEW ORLEANS _ Halfway through “No Time to Lose,” the dust is beginning to bounce off the carpets of Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church.
Two keyboardists, a bass guitarist and a drummer lead a slam-bang, 50-voice choir whose output is all but buried in the full-throated singing of nearly 4,000 congregants.
Everybody is up, clapping to the beat. Amps pump out a wall of sound. The uptempo beat thuds against chests and whooshes outside as late arrivals, Bibles in hand, pull open doors at the back of the church and step into the plush sanctuary.
Bishop Paul S. Morton Sr., a slight man dressed in a floor-length crimson cassock _ yes, a cassocked Baptist bishop _ moves toward the pulpit as dozens of ushers guide latecomers to the remaining seats. Overhead, banners proclaim: “Something good is going to happen to you this very day!!!”
“Glory!” Morton begins. “Don’t we have so much to be thankful for? Praise him!”
Welcome to Sunday morning at Greater St. Stephen _ a big, exuberant, optimistic church that is more than a church in the usual sense.
It is huge. With at least 18,000 members, six choirs, seven Sunday services at three different and widely separated locations, Greater St. Stephen is by far the biggest church anywhere around New Orleans; every bit as big as the enormous megachurches of Dallas, Houston and Atlanta.
But more, Greater St. Stephen is a $7 million-a-year economic force seeking investments with its growing wealth _ an explicit pride-builder in a congregation that is predominantly African-American.
At Greater St. Stephen, members do familiar work. They study Scripture, evangelize and run teen pregnancy programs. But Morton also dreams of linking church members and other African-Americans into an economic as well as a spiritual family.
In the vision’s grandest form, heaven would be but the last stop on a journey from life in a church-subsidized subdivision, through shopping at church-owned businesses, and retirement in church-owned housing.
If that weren’t enough, Greater St. Stephen _ unaligned with any traditional Baptist denomination _ is also the launching pad and mother church for the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, a spreading national religious movement of uncertain future but clear ambitions.
Launched four years ago by Morton, the fellowship seeks nothing less than to enlarge mainstream Baptist tradition to accommodate, even welcome, his subset of “Pentecostal Baptists,” whose enthusiasm for speaking in tongues and miraculous healings are rarely embraced by traditional Baptists.
Beyond lies a more remote but tantalizing dream: a cross-denominational link-up of Pentecostal movements nationwide.
They might include young Pentecostal-flavored churches inside traditional denominations, such as the Baptists, as well as older, free-standing Pentecostal churches that dot the landscape of American Protestantism.
All this activity has made Morton, 46, the most prominent Protestant clergyman in New Orleans.
Four years ago he opened the first session of the House of Representatives under the Clinton administration, an appearance arranged by a church member, Rep. William Jefferson. Last year the Atlanta Journal Constitution named Morton one of “96 Southerners to Watch.”
From the pulpit _ from his three pulpits, actually _ Morton preaches a Christianity shining with an explicit theology of prosperity, pride and empowerment that has made him a wealthy exemplar of his message.
Its core is that to know God not only orients and braces the soul, but leads to a heaven-sent outpouring of physical and financial blessings. By growing in Christianity, Morton teaches, historically oppressed black people draw close to a God who has pledged not only to grant them eternal life, but free them from financial bondage in the here and now.
Morton’s speech is full of exhortations to “raise the standard,” to “change a generation.” He savages “the enemy called `average.’ ”
That passion infuses the church’s drive for economic development.
With his wife, Debra, as co-pastor, Morton’s name appears on church stationery as “senior pastor and CEO.” In the language of Greater St. Stephen, the church’s administration comes not from the church office, but from “corporate headquarters.”
Backed by congregants’ donations _ totaling almost $6 million last year _ Morton and his board of trustees have plowed church money into highly visible investments. They include two office buildings, an apartment building the church hopes to convert to housing for the elderly, and most prominently, a $1.7-million, 15-acre former Coast Guard residential compound with fully occupied rental units.
Morton’s economic ambitions reflect an appetite for business at least as great as for preaching. It does not hurt that he is a political player, too. No public official can afford to ignore a clergyman with access to 18,000 people. While Morton alone is not a kingmaker, his endorsement is seriously courted in every important race.
On the day Morton succeeded Greater St. Stephen’s previous pastor, the Rev. Percy Simpson, the church had an enrollment of 647.
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That was two years after the 22-year-old Morton arrived in New Orleans from Windsor, Ontario, in 1972. The son of C.L. Morton, an influential Pentecostal bishop who led Church of God in Christ congregations in Windsor and Detroit, Morton joined Greater St. Stephen more or less right off the bus. Within six months, he became assistant pastor, and then became pastor after Simpson died in a car accident in November 1974.
He met Debra Brown in the church choir and married her in 1976, the year he collected his degree from Union Theological Seminary.
Morton combined a gift for preaching with solid organizing skills, an ability to attract top names on the gospel concert circuit, and a keen appreciation of the importance of broadcasting his services. Buying television and radio time remains his church’s biggest expense outside its payroll, consuming $750,000 a year.
But the pulpit is the seat of Morton’s power.
At the head of his congregation, Morton is not imposing. Short and slight, he has smooth features and in conversation, a soft voice.
When he preaches he prowls the aisles, cordless mike in hand. He pushes into the congregation and retreats. He sits on the steps for a mock breather. He does voices, rolls his eyes, lapses into comedy. He shouts and whispers, crouches and explodes, casts fire and spreads jubilation with a regularity that always has a good portion of his congregants rising to their feet.
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Shortly after arriving at Greater St. Stephen, Morton began to preach the distinctively Pentecostal message that personal manifestations of the Holy Spirit can be made apparent in the world today. Morton welcomed members’ speaking in tongues; he proclaimed physical healings in the congregation.
Around New Orleans today, few traditional Baptist pastors are publicly critical of Morton’s “Baptist Pentecostalism.”
Morton, however, said he feels a certain chill. Relations with many other Baptist pastors are superficially civil, but without depth or warmth, he said.
To the extent there is tension, it dates from Morton’s 1993 announcement that he had taken for himself the title of bishop and was launching a national movement to affiliate other Baptist churches into a loose fold he called the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship. For Baptists, who have a deep cultural aversion to hierarchical titles, the idea of a “Baptist bishop” was profoundly jolting.
“When he named himself a bishop, never in all my years did I ever see a single word so stir up a bunch of pastors,” said the Rev. Fred Luter of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation not affiliated with Morton. “Bishop. Whew!”
Even though Morton and other fellowship members repeatedly assert they are not trying to build a new denomination, Wardell Payne, editor of the Directory of African-American Religious Bodies, notes that a useful groundwork is nonetheless being laid: the identification of leadership, establishment of territories, church recruiting and the construction of a revenue base.
Morton and others say they hope only that the fellowship gains enough strength to carve out a place for Pentecostal-style worship in traditional Baptist life.
“I think the fellowship is really going to change the definition of what it means to be Baptist,” said Bishop Andrew Lewter of Oakley Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio, described by some as the premier theologian of the movement.
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Morton lives in a $300,000 house, dresses expensively and favored a Mercedes until a used Rolls Royce recently caught his eye.
“I don’t fall into the category, the mentality, of preachers who don’t have anything,” Morton said. “If you work hard, you’re supposed to get paid. It’s part of life.”
He will not discuss his earnings. “I like to keep that private,” he said.
He told the Atlanta Journal Constitution last year the figure was between $100,000 and $200,000.
Staff members say Morton is among the heaviest contributors to the church, turning over all his income above an undisclosed figure.
Although the church staff includes about two dozen associate pastors, Morton, and to some extent his wife, have handled almost all the preaching duties for more than 20 years, expanding to 10 services a week.
He hates that someone might begrudge him his due “when I give my whole life, 24 hours a day. It doesn’t matter what time, I’m there for my people.”
MJP END NOLAN
