Finding meaning in the harsh landscape of living.

Well, some people think Jesus is not white. Some people say Jesus is not
black. They say He is a Hebrew. I really don't know what a Hebrew person
looks like, but I just picture him like in the pictures. You know how
people have the pictures of Jesus all around the wall. The main one that
I have been seeing is Jesus like a white man with a beard, with His hair
kind of hanging down, kind of like I have mine now.
--Sister A.C., 13 years old

In religious circles, the word "covenant," pregnant with biblical allusions, connotes an engagement with God entered into by believers. In Covenant: Scenes from an African American Church, a handsome coffee table book of photographs published by Indiana University Press (2007), photographer Tyagan Miller quietly captures the special covenant the members of Indianapolis' Friendship Missionary Baptist Church have with their God.

But Miller also reveals his own personal covenant with the subjects he has photographed: Never once does he intrude, but rather acts as a respectful recorder of what often are intensely personal, although public, moments of prayer.

In a photographer's note, Miller explains the impetus behind his book. He was helping to design an alternative school for urban high-risk youth, when he noticed that the African American teenagers who had the greatest success in overcoming the drawbacks of their inner-city surroundings were the ones who went to church. He began to ask himself: What was it about their faith that gave them such an advantage?

The ninety-three black-and-white photographs in the oversized volume are organized into five sections which, as Miller pointed out in a telephone interview, are arranged thematically. The center, core section is devoted to photographs of the pastor, preaching the word. "After all, without God's word, there is no church," Miller noted. The first two sections cover the activities of the church, from birth to death, including scenes at a baptism, wedding and funeral and the services where parishioners are receiving the word. To the right of the core section are photographs of the congregation in fellowship in informal gatherings around the church. The final section is a series of portraits. "These symbolically stand for the saved souls," says Miller.

Scattered throughout the volume are quotes from the parishioners about losses they've experienced, their idea of heaven, doubts about their faith and reflections about God. "(I)t is possible to hear in the poignant comments by members of the church that is documented in Covenant echoes of the generations coming to grips with W.E.B. Du Bois' questions: Are hope and faith justified? Do the sorrow songs sing true? Their comments point to the potency these questions continue to have so many years after Du Bois articulated them," Pulitzer Prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa writes in the book's introduction. His essay, which offers an overview of the religious influence on black poetry, is an added bonus.

Miller doesn't say whether he found an answer to his original question about at-risk kids and why belonging to a church seems to help them get through what he calls "the often harsh landscape of living," but his photographs reflect a resiliency and sense of belonging that hint at what that answer might be.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Tyagan Miller with Margo Hammond