August 2023 Edition of The Christian Recorder

The Triumphant 20 th Episcopal District Flourishes With Bishop Frederick A. Wright, Sr.

The 20 th Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church continues to be overwhelmingly blessed as the hands of God and the godly leadership of Bishop Frederick A. Wright, Sr. reached out and touched the five nations he serves, Malawi, Zimbabwe, the northern portion of Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, at a time when COVID-19 was still impacting the world.

Bishop Frederick Alan Wright, Sr, was elected 142 nd elected and consecrated bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in July 2021. Bishop Wright arrived in the Republic of Malawi, affectionately known as the Warm Heart of Africa, and was welcomely warmly by members from all regions of the country at the Lilongwe International Airport. The presiding elders, pastors, lay, Women’s Missionary Society (WMS), Sons of Allen (SOA), and Young People’s Division members welcomed Bishop Wright with open arms.

Divine Appointment Since 2017

Reverend Dr. Frederick A. Wright, Sr., has been on the path to becoming the Episcopal father of the 20 th Episcopal District since 2017 when he initiated the “Seed Time and Harvest Project” designed to impact food insecurity for pastors in the Malawi South Annual Conference in the Republic of Malawi. The project involved funds provided by then-pastor Wright of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Forest Park, Ohio. Funds Pastor Wright provided allowed 20 pastors to receive a bag of corn seed and one 50 kg bag of fertilizer to assist them in planting and harvesting food for their families. Four years later, Pastor Wright became the spiritual father of the 20 th Episcopal District.

Presiding Elder Eustice B. Ginya, president of the 20th District Presiding

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Proud Boys Ordered to Pay More Than $1 Million for RaciallyMotivated Attack on Historically Black Church

WASHINGTON– Today, a judge ordered the Proud Boys and several of its leaders to pay more than $1 million for a racially-motivated attack on the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in December 2020. The Superior Court for the District of Columbia held that the defendants engaged in an unlawful conspiracy and violated federal and state civil rights laws, including the Ku Klux Klan Act and the D.C. hate crimes statute. During the attack, members of the Proud Boys trespassed onto the 185-year-old black church and destroyed a large Black Lives Matter sign.

Can God Save America?

George Anthony Pratt, Contributing Writer

A Facebook post from an African American and Methodist pastor read, “I really mean this. May God Bless America! We need God, BAD!” I paused at the declaration of God extending benevolence to America and the profession of the country in desperate need of God. With suspicion, I questioned if a just God would intervene in human affairs on behalf of America. Would a God of love, equity, and inclusion pour bounty into the “land of the free” or allow the “home of the brave” to implode? When considering the present historical moment characterized by the conflict of culture wars steeped in othering embodied by forms of anti-blackness, misogyny, queerphobia, and economic oppression relative to the nation’s past, an answer to my line of inquiry became

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“The attack against Metropolitan AME was an attempt to silence the congregation’s voice and its support for black life, dignity, and safety. It represents just the latest chapter in a long history of white supremacist violence targeting black houses of worship,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “These attacks are meant to intimidate and create fear, and this lawsuit’s aim was to hold those who engage in such action accountable. We also sought to amplify the voices of the church’s leadership and congregation–the very voices the perpetrators sought to silence–and to ensure that others give no

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U.S. Embassy Official Visits AME University in Monrovia, Liberia

The charge d‘affaires at the United States Embassy in Monrovia, His Excellency Joel F. Maybury, has paid a one-day working visit to the campus of the AME University and a tour of the Eliza Turner Memorial AME Church in Monrovia, Liberia.

The visit was primarily aimed at strengthening the ongoing relationship with AME University and reconnecting with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The

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Justice Thomas: An Insult to Uncle Tom p18

Proud Boys chairman Henry Enrique Tarrio during rally on September 26, 2022 in Portland, Oregon.

Photo by Joshua Lott from TheWashingtonPost

quarter to this type of racist behavior. Today’s judgment marks the realization of those efforts. The Lawyers’ Committee was proud to answer the call in this case and honored to represent this historic black institution, which sits just blocks from our own office and the area near the White House known as Black Lives Matter Plaza. We will continue to stand up against white supremacy and send the message that this type of conduct will not be tolerated–not here, not anywhere.”

On the night of Dec. 12, 2020, a group led by the Proud Boys rampaged through the streets of Washington, vandalizing four churches, including Metropolitan. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was convicted of burning another church’s Black Lives Matter banner. The church’s historical expert testified that while attacks on black churches have a long history, accountability for such attacks is rare. Another expert on white supremacy testified that the Proud Boys frequently use violence as a tool to advance their ideological agenda. As noted in Judge Neal Kravitz’s opinion: “The record is replete with evidence that all of the defendants acted with an evil, discriminatory motive based on race and with deliberate violence and a willful disregard for the rights of the church and its congregants.”

“The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal

Church has a long, esteemed history of standing against bigotry and hate. Our courage and determination to fight back in response to the 2020 attack on our church is a beacon of hope for our community and today’s ruling showed us what our collective vision and voice can achieve,” said the Rev William H. Lamar IV, pastor of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. “While AME refused to be silenced in the face of white supremacist violence, that does not mean real trauma and damage did not occur – merely that congregants and the church have and will continue to rise above it. Our church is rooted in the theological vision that humankind is one family. Institutions like ours must continue to lead the way toward a new narrative and white supremacist institutions must be an erased element.”

“The ultimate goal of this lawsuit was not monetary windfall, but to stop the Proud Boys from being able to act with impunity, without fear of consequences for their actions. And that’s exactly what we accomplished,” said Arthur Ago, director of the Lawyers’ Committee Criminal Justice Project. “Metropolitan AME Church’s support for Black Lives Matter made it the target of the attack by members of the Proud Boys, who traveled to Washington, D.C. that day with the explicit goal of intimidating those who support the struggle for racial equity. We applaud the

Court’s ruling as a crucial step forward in the national fight against white supremacy and racially charged attacks against black and brown communities.”

“We are thrilled that our client, the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, has received a measure of justice for the Proud Boys’ racist attack against it,” said Daniel J. Kramer, a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. “By holding the Proud Boys and its leadership accountable, the court’s judgment should deter others who might consider engaging in racially motivated violence in the future.”

“The Proud Boys’ attack on Metropolitan AME Church is part of a long history of racist violence against people of color,” said Jacqueline KutnikBauder, deputy legal director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Right and Urban Affairs. “Today the court put all groups with violent hate-based agendas on notice – that actions have consequences.”

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Background:Metropolitan AME Church v. Proud Boys was filed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, on behalf of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Superior Court of the District of

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Columbia with the purpose to deter the Proud Boys and their leadership from their campaign of racist violence, which they perpetrate with impunity.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and co-counsel filed the lawsuit on Jan. 4, 2021 against the Proud Boys and several of their leaders for vandalizing the church. The lawsuit alleged violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act, violation of D.C.’s hate crimes law, violation of federal

Elder’s Council, explained that “The 20th Episcopal District has been blessed to have a servant leader like Bishop Frederick A. Wright, Sr. Despite the fact that he was assigned during COVID-19 pandemic, Bishop Wright has succeeded in executing his duties in all five countries using effective social media platforms and face-to-face meetings. Bishop Wright is vigorously continuing the work of equipping the youth of the 20 th district, and our future is bright because the young people are attending university. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! To our God be the glory.”

Presiding Elder Jimson Kaponda of the Malawi North Annual Conference shared that he personally witnessed Bishop Frederick A. Wright, Sr. aid the Episcopal District in the purchase of masks for members of the Malawi North Annual Conference and provide funds to our WMS and YPD delegates for the application of visa’s and transport to the United States Embassy. Bishop Wright ministers with the love of God not only in words but in deeds. We also have been blessed with mother s upervisor, a caring and loving spirit. We are thankful for Bishop and Mother Supervisor Wright’s sacrifices that they make to our Episcopal district.

20 th Episcopal Lay Episcopal Lay president, Bro. Ronald Mkandawire, shared that Bishop Frederick A. Wright, Sr. “has advocated for a balanced leadership representation of the elected Episcopal District Lay officers by making sure that for the first time, all seven annual conferences forming the 20 th Episcopal District in the countries of Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe are elected officers of the Episcopal Lay executive.” In an effort to close the gap with the great distances between the five countries of the district, “Bishop Wright initiated the development and launch of an Episcopal Lay Organization website to be used as an online training hub for the entire district.”

He further noted that a key goal of the Lay Organization is to “ensure that the 20 th District is plugged into all of the CLO programs by providing finances whenever they are needed to see to it that the district is not left behind.”

The 2022 Episcopal Lay Convention was hosted in Blantyre, Malawi, by the Malawi South Annual Conference, South West Mulanje District. We were blessed to have a very successful convention, with leadership from our Connectional Lay president, Mr. Matikane Abednego Makiti. Under his leadership, new Episcopal officers were elected and charged to perform their duties diligently.

Education and Academic Excellence

As an educator himself, education is near and dear to the heart of our lovely Bishop Wright, and “he has demonstrated that by providing financial support to some pastors who are continuing their education, providing school supplies and support for primary and secondary AME schools in the 20th District,” explains P.E. Rev. Fanny Mdzeka – presiding elder, Lilongwe District.

law protecting religious property, conspiracy, trespass, and property destruction.

The Proud Boys and their leaders failed to show up and defend themselves in court and the court entered default judgments against the defendants. In April 2023, plaintiffs presented evidence from the church’s pastor, a congregant, and expert witnesses regarding the attack and the harm that it caused.

African Methodist Episcopal 20 th District International Scholarship

The 20 th Episcopal District under Bishop Frederick A. Wright, Sr. is poised to enroll its 32 nd AME International Scholar class attending Africa University, Mutare, Zimbabwe, on a full 4-year scholarship representing each country of the Episcopal District. These scholars are pursuing undergraduate degrees in accounting, international relations, social work, computer science technology and information systems, agriculture, law, health service management, and public and business administration. The birth of this initiative came under the leadership of Bishop Ronnie Elijah Brailsford, Sr. in 2020 in partnership with the United Methodist Church with a goal to provide scholarships for thirty-two 20 th District scholars. Bishop Brailsford passed the mantle in 2021 to Bishop Wright, who picked up the mantle and kept running by providing spiritual, financial, emotional, and social support needs to the scholars. Students require financial support every year for laptops, wifi devices, transportation to and from the university from their various countries, COVID-19 certificates, immigration, police background checks, chest x-ray, and passports. The district is poised to celebrate its first 20 th District AME graduating class in June 2024. The oversight of the project is undergirded by the 20 th Episcopal District Christian Education Department, Presiding Elder the Rev. Rosetta Swinton, Episcopal Christian Education director, Blantyre, Malawi - South West Mulanje District.

Second-year scholar Brian Chavundikira of Kasungu, Malawi (social work) explained that Bishop Wright’s “tireless efforts and unwavering commitment to our spiritual growth and development have left a profound impact on all of us. His leadership and guidance have helped us navigate through some of the toughest challenges and uncertainties, and we have emerged stronger and more united than ever before. His teachings and sermons have inspired and motivated us to lead a life of compassion, humility, and service to others. His words of wisdom and encouragement have given us the strength to face the trials and tribulations of life with unwavering faith and hope. Additionally, Bishop Wright has made a lasting impact on our lives, and we are forever grateful for the love and guidance you have shown us.”

Mcfield Moyo of Lilongwe, Malawi (3rd year, international relations) shares that Bishop Frederick A. Wright, Sr. “is a man of God who always shares with us the Word of God which brings salvation. Bishop is one of our advisors when it comes to school issues. He is always there with guidance and some words of encouragement. We love him. May the good Lord continue blessing him with his family.”

Bishop Wright “has been so kind and passionate to AME scholars by providing us with encouragement, words of God, prayers, and advice. He has assisted the youth to attend Africa University by providing financial support for laptops, supplies, transportation, and the 2022 Episcopal Young People’s Division retreat,” says Vitumbiko Gumbo. (business administration).

Benjamin Mwangulukulu (3 rd year, agriculture) pointed

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out that “in one way or the other, bishop and mother supervisor have been sent to rescue our families, more especially to some duties our parents can’t afford to assist with their children’s education. Bishop Fredrick Wright is a wonderful bishop who can work and manage his duties under pressure.”

Clergy - Ministerial

Bishop Wright has been able to effectively provide godly leadership, communications, and guidance through Zoom and WhatsApp platforms to conduct meetings and provide important updates to the leadership of the district. Face-to-face annual conference series are spirit filled, educative, and informative. Bishop Wright provides spiritual, educational, and social support and stipends to all presiding elders and pastors of the district each year. Bishop Wright has a heart for improving theological studies for the ministers of the district and addressing illiteracy in general.

Under Bishop Wright’s leadership, for the first time, presiding elders could attend online presiding elder training through Payne Theological Seminary, Wilberforce, Ohio, in collaborative partnership with the Rev. Dr. Betty W. Holley, academic dean. Additionally, for the first time, ministerial and leadership members will be able to engage in online training for a certificate in theology through Turner Theological Seminary’s ELEV8 Program, Atlanta, Georgia, in collaborative partnership with the Rev. Dr. Ammie L. Davis, president. The 20th District is poised to have a minimum of 35 scholars in the program representing the five countries of the 20 th District, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Uganda.

20 th District Women in Ministry (WIM) president, presiding elder, the Rev. Fanny Mdzeka, reports that under the leadership of Bishop Frederick A. Wright, 20 th Episcopal District, WIM has 14 itinerant elders and three itinerant deacons, licentiates, evangelists, and exhorters. She disclosed that Bishop Wright met many challenges, but he was able to empower the WIM members to participate during annual conferences through WIM Hour of Power, which is an opportunity for the WIM members to show their gifts and talents. Bishop Wright encourages WIM members to participate in global WIM despite internet challenges, issues of resources, and visa restrictions. As the Commission chair for Connectional WIM, Bishop Wright is always there for us. He supports the president financially with travelling expenses to attend the annual conferences around the districts. Bishop Wright plans to continue empowering women, giving them the right position, and supporting them in their educational pursuits.

Church Growth and Development

Under Bishop Wright’s leadership, the Malawi North Conference added three churches, Malawi Central added four churches, Malawi South Conference added five new churches, and North East Zimbabwe added six new churches for a total of 21 churches.

Bishop Wright has assisted with the church infrastructure of the Malawi Central Conference to build a new church formerly known as Boma AME Church which had not been able to be built for more than 50 years. The new church will be named Frederick Wright Chapel AME Church, Kasungu, Malawi.

20 th District Disaster Relief Efforts 2022-2023

The 20 th Episcopal District has been hard hit for some time due to the challenges of climate change and is known for experiencing flooding due to heavy rains and cyclones. Within six months of Bishop Wright’s arrival

to the district, three devastating severe weather patterns in 2022 occurred consecutively in the southern region of Malawi, where three cyclones devastated the country in the South East and South West Mulanje districts in January, February, and March (Cyclone Ana, Gombe, and Demarko). Hundreds of our AME families were homeless, losing their homes, possessions, livestock, and crops due to heavy rains, flooding, and winds. In 2023 Malawi experienced a devastating disaster punch from Cyclone Freddy. It was reported as the worst cyclone to strike Malawi.

We thank God for the quick action of Bishop Wright and the hundreds of well-wishers that have provided disaster relief funds and supplies. Through this effort, the district could distribute food and blankets to 967 families of over 2,318 people. The disaster districts serviced were Nsanje, Chikwawa, Mulanje, Chiradzulu, and Phalombe, all in the southern region of Malawi. In Mozambique, disaster relief was also provided to assist victims. The Rev. Santos Bussane explained that Bishop Frederick A Wright, Sr. has been a true father and leader in constructing Parquia Sao Paulo AMEC in Beira. In addition, Mozambique is well known for being a vulnerable country to climate change, and it has suffered from several cyclones and floods. Bishop Frederick Wright was always ready to help regarding the availability of funds for the purchase and distribution of food to those affected. Bishop Frederick Wright has many qualities that we can run out of days to argue about.

With profound gratitude, the 20 th District extends our deepest thanks and appreciation to everyone that have prayed, donated money, and provided supplies for the disaster victims of the 20 th Episcopal District, especially in Malawi and Mozambique. Many families are still homeless and living in camps; food insecurity is still a huge challenge. May God bless you all richly as you remember those still affected.

Health Matters

Each church in the 20 th Episcopal District aims to provide health information and services through the Episcopal, annual conference, presiding elder district, and local church health commission. The South West Mulanje District health director Veronica Kanjodo partnered with the District WMS president to provide important health education on blood pressure, dental hygiene, family planning, and cholera during the WMS Retreat. The 20 th Episcopal District is the beneficiary of a grant for a Church Garden Project in Blantyre, Malawi, through the AME Church International Health Commission, the Rev. Dr. Miriam Burnett - medical director. This initiative aims to grow crops to support families suffering from food insecurity.

Churches Named in Honor of Bishop

Frederick A. Wright, Sr.

Frederick A. Wright AME Church, Nsanje Malawi - South West Mulanje

Frederick A. Wright Temple, Chiradzulu, Malawi - South East Mulanje Frederick Wright Chapel, Kasungu, Malawi - Central Malawi

The work is all divine, and God has blessed the 20th Episcopal District by divinely appointing a loving, kind, and visionary leader to be the servant leader of the five countries that form the Triumphant Twentieth Episcopal District. We are blessed, and we give God all the glory. Bishop Frederick A. Wright, Sr. has poured love, prayer, service, and resources into the 20th District to move T.E.A.M. 20 th to the next level by the power and grace of God. We pray for the favor of God to continue to follow him and our mother supervisor, Jennifer Dixon Wright, as they continue to minister to the people. ❏ ❏ ❏

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clear. My question then shifted, probing if God can save America.

My answer? No. I do not think God can save America. My response is not concerned with the ability of God or a god to offer their cleansing salvation to the blood-stained banner of American sovereignty. Rather, I do not believe that a God of freedom and liberty would sully and soil themselves with the muck and mire of America and her many acts of injustices too lengthy and lasting to name. I would surmise America’s salvation rests upon her citizens. I would suggest that a God of opportunity, life, and happiness would prefer its human selves and counterparts to enact a bold agency and ethic of radical love to usher in God’s heavenly kingdom on earth, which is a beloved community, on earth in America where all of God’s children got shoes, a robe, and a crown. This Mt. Zion of America, a country under a liberating God, is where all of their children would have equal opportunity and protection under the law, bodily integrity, autonomy, access to public goods and resources, housing, healthcare, and healthy food.  While imagining a future America that lives up to its ideals marks a start to achieving a freer society, actualizing this end will require a reckoning that I am afraid America is not willing to undertake nor prepared to confront. Suppose America truly desires to transform into a civil society that values the sacredness of the human person and eliminates oppression. In that case, the country must assess the following questions: As a nationstate, will the United States dismantle its surveilling institutions of white supremacy and systemic racism? Will America radically redistribute the nation’s wealth, abandoning its oppressive and exploitative model of meritocracy? Will America interrogate its loyalty to global imperialism and quench its thirst for militarist ic, media, and cultural domination with a sip of longing to foster peace and cooperation throughout the world? The questions America must address for transformation are endless.

I do not think God can save America. I wish a god could save America, but I lay aside such a fanciful prayer, for I do not believe that America can save itself. I pray I am in error. I pray that a better America is not relegated to my dreams. I pray that my posterity will, too, sing of a free America. To the God of the empty prayers, hear my heart. Make the impossible happen. Oh! What a miracle it will be to witness America saving itself. God of the fanciful, we need you BAD! Bless us. I really mean this. God Bless America!

AME Church during the episcopacy of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner in 1895. At the time, the Rev. Heard also served as minister resident and ambassador of the United States of Liberia (1895-1898) and was later elected and consecrated as a bishop in the AME Church in 1908 and subsequently assigned to the 14 th Episcopal District.

After a closed-door meeting, the university president, the Rev. Alvin E. Attah, Sr., led the U.S. diplomat on a campus tour. Deputy Chief Maybury expressed excitement and delight in seeing that previous investments done at the AME University by the government and people of the United States of America are still being maintained and used to maximally impact the lives of thousands of African youths at the AME University in Liberia.

“I am so thrilled to see that the American Corner in your library and the Hatcher-Henning-Norris Human Resources Center (Hatcher Hall) built with grants from the U.S. government are still being used and kept decently.” He further highlighted the need for closer collaboration between the two institutions in areas of common interest. He recognized the effort of William Sampson Brooks (1865-1934), Bishop C. Garnett Henning, Sr. (1936-2018), Bishop David R. Daniels, Jr., and Congressman Jim Clyburn in getting the AME University well positioned in West Africa. Special recognition was made of the Rt. Rev. Paul J. M. Kawimbe, who now serves as the presiding prelate of the 14 th Episcopal District and oversees the affairs of the AME University and other AME institutions in West Africa.

Deputy Chief Maybury also hailed the pastor and members of Eliza Turner Memorial AME Church for preserving the legacy of the Rev. William H. Heard, especially as he shared his time as U.S. ambassador to Liberia in 1895 and worked for the AME Church, and 128 years thereafter, the Eliza Turner AME Church continues to impact lives in keeping with the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).

The visit of the senior U.S. diplomat confirms a renewed relationship between the U.S. Embassy and the AME institutions. ❏ ❏ ❏

Payne Theological Seminary at a Glance

Rev. Dr. Betty Holley, Contributing Writer

At Payne’s commencement exercise, held May 12, 2023, there were sixteen Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and nineteen Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) degrees awarded. One of the other highlights of commencement was the awarding of the Doctorate of Humane Letters to Dr. Marcus T. Henderson, Sr., treasurer/chief financial officer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC).

Payne is presently working with Bishop Ronnie E. Brailsford, Sr., to create a central location, possibly in Johannesburg, to work with students desiring to pursue the M.Div. and D.Min., that will encompass AME Church districts 15, 17, 18, 19, and 20. Recently, Payne had the opportunity to do a hooding ceremony for fifteen Payne graduates who graduated during COVID-19 with the Master of Divinity from the 15 th Episcopal District under the leadership of Bishop David

R. Daniels, Jr. Bishop Silvester S. Beaman, the current presiding prelate of the 15 th, hosted us. Between 2020-2023, Payne awarded over $1,000,000 to students matriculating with the help of the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) and a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. During the COVID-19 pandemic, students were challenged financially to continue their seminary education. With monies from these

two funding agencies, students were able to concentrate fully on their academics.

Payne had an excellent D.Min. intensive in Marietta, Georgia, from January 23-27, 2023. Dr. John Kinney was the scholar-in-residence. The Fall D.Min. intensive will be held on the campus of Payne, August 21-25, 2023,

Reverend William H. Heard founded the Eliza Turner Memorial

where Dr. Frank Glover, Dr. Martha Simmons, and Dr. Cynthia McDonald will be the scholars-in-residence. The theme for the intensive is “The Black Church’s Response to Critical Race Theory: Jesus, I Will Never Forget What You Have Done for Me,” Deuteronomy 6:1-9.

August 1, 2023, Payne will partner with Reid Temple AMEC, Glen Da le, Maryland, to provide courses, seminars, conferences, and other learning opportunities for members of Reid Temple, where the Rev. Dr. Mark Whitlock and the Rev. Mia Whitlock are the pastor and first l ady. Courses will be online, hybrid, and in-person.

Payne held its second Ministers’ Retreat and Presiding Elders’ Conference, March 13-17, 2023, in Henderson, Nevada. The Presiding Elders’ Conference was in-person and virtual with participants from all Episcopal districts. The Ministers’ Retreat consisted of pastors/ministers from several denominations, to include the African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Me thodist Episcopal churches. These two denominations were especi ally invited due to their participation in Payne’s $1.2 million-dollar Black Methodist Mapping Project that commenced in 2019. As of June, the L illy Endowment has afforded Payne the opportunity for an extension of the Black Methodist Mapping Project with a $500,000 Sustainability/Scale Gra nt.

Payne’s Lifelong Learning Program is exci ted to offer community seminars that will enhance leadership skills, made possible through the Gordon Hill Treadwell and Bell Lay Leadership Institute. Seminars offered during the Spring/Fall: Social Action and the AMEC, AME Polity, Local Church Leadership: Stewards and Trustees, Social Holiness and Social Change, The Church and the Environment, Understanding Alzheimer’s, Working With Diabetes, Robert’s Rules of Order; just to name a few. Check the website, www.payneseminary.edu, for more information, Payne of fered two mental wellness retreats for faculty and staff geared toward two areas: “Self-Care Practices,” facilitated by Dr. Toni Johnson Liggins , psychiatrist and associate dean of Clinical Studies at St. George’s University in Grenada, West Indies, and “De-Stressing for the Professional,” facilitated by the Rev. Vanessa Cummings, pastor of Payne Chapel AMEC, Hamilton, Ohio. A $50,000 grant from the Lilly Endowment made these retreats possible.

In June, Payne received a $25,000 grant from the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) to work on the school’s strategic and enrollment plans. Payne Theological Seminary, the only fre e-standing African American seminary in the United States with ATS approval for 100% on line delivery of the Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Religious Leader ship Degree programs, is on the theological move! ❏ ❏ ❏

I Can Depend on God

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:2

Rev. Dr. Maxine Thomas, Columnist

By definition, a rock is that which may give strong or firm support. A rock is that which can hold weight. A rock is that which cannot easily be moved. You can stand on a rock without it giving way and causing you to fall to the ground. A rock is dependable.

And so it is that God is a rock. We can depend on God; for God is the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore. God is constant in all his ways.

There are so many changes all around us. The morals and values of society have changed over the years. At one time, it was all right to discipline someone else’s child if he or she misbehaved. Now, parents do not even discipline their own children.

Changes are all around us. Once upon a time, people were not afraid to leave their front door unlocked at night. Now, because of the increasing crime rate, not only are people putting the lock and the safety lock on, but also, people are placing iron and steel bars on their windows and doors. There are changes all around us.

Not only are there changes all around us, but also there are changes within us. Our attitudes have changed on how we perceive the decline in societal morals and even in how we endeavor to live up to God’s standards.

And so it is that man is seeking stability. Stability allows one to feel safe and secure. Stability ensures

that everything is all right. Stability gives us a sense of security.

And yet we find many people putting their hope and trust in material things that will one day perish–here today and gone tomorrow.

But I am so glad that God is faithful. We can put our trust in God, and

he will not let us down. God is not a man, that he should lie. He is perfect in all his ways. Our God is no respecter of persons. What God has done for others, God will surely do for you.

Beloved, Jesus is the rock of our salvation. The Lord is our rock, our fortress, and our deliverer. Hallelujah!

Not only can I stand on the promises of God’s Word, but God will shield me from all hurt, harm, and danger. He is my fortress. Martin Luther wrote, “A mighty fortress is our God.” There is absolutely nothing that can penetrate the fort that God builds around us. God will make your enemies your footstool. God hides you from those who seek to

destroy you. God makes the devil get back. Shout hallelujah! Praise the name of our God!

I am so glad that I can depend on God to deliver me from the hands of my enemies. Great is our God’s faithfulness! God is El Shaddai, the All-Mighty God. God knows how to bring us out to bring us in. What a mighty God we serve! God is my deliverer!

God will deliver you from fear, heartache and grief, depression and oppression, pride, and selfsufficiency.

My friend, take refuge in the Lord. Rest in God’s love. Rest in God’s joy. Rest in the Lord. Oh, how God loves you. ❏ ❏ ❏

...From Payne Theological p5

Insecure

Robbie Colson-Ramsey, Contributing Writer

I spent the entire 4 th of July weekend binge-watching HBO’s TV show Insecure (don’t come for me, I know the show is old, but I did not have HBO). It was a show about two friends, Molly and Issa, living with insecurities and navigating through the joys and sorrows of friendship as two black women in Los Angeles. While the show has no direct connection to the role of first spouses in the church, it helps you explore the relationships of first spouses and their significance to the church community as we navigate there our joys and sorrows of life–and insecurities–while in the eye-view of the church members.

Insecurity negatively impacts individuals’ confidence and self-esteem and hinders their effectiveness in serving their church. It may prevent an individual from taking on leadership roles or responsibilities within their church community. To overcome insecurity as a first spouse, one must focus on personal growth, self-reflection, and developing a healthy sense of self-worth.

Insecurity can also manifest as a fear of being judged by others, including fellow church members. This fear can prevent individuals from expressing themselves, sharing ideas, or engaging in open discussions within the church community. Often, many first spouses are afraid to voice their opinion for fear of retaliation from the pastor. To overcome this fear, one must build self-assurance, recognize everyone has unique perspectives, and understand that growth comes from learning and supporting one another. Also, it is vital for first spouses to listen to and be observant of their parishioners and the church’s vision. I will never forget what a first

lady told me, leading up to my first Sunday as a new first lady. She said, “Shut up and sit down for a year to listen and understand the people.” This one piece of advice has proven to be highly successful for me and my first lady ministry.

Insecurity also leads to feelings of inadequacy or jealousy when spouses compare themselves to others. This mindset can create an unhealthy atmosphere within the church, hindering collaboration, unity, and the collective focus on serving others. It is essential to embrace individual strengths and celebrate each person’s unique contributions to the church community.

Churches are meant to be supportive communities where individuals can grow in their faith and serve one another. As first spouses, you are not negated from this support to help you grow and work through your insecurities. Reflecting inwardly can also aid in overcoming insecurities. Your church and support system can provide advice, support, and prayers, helping you to navigate your insecurities and find your strengths.

In conclusion, overcoming insecurities involves personal growth, selfreflection, and creating a supportive environment within the church community. By addressing and working through insecurities, you can unlock your potential and contribute your unique gifts to the service of your churches. When people who are whole and happy surround you, they create an atmosphere of true joy in which the Lord’s name can be praised. ❏ ❏ ❏

God’s Sovereignty Over Human Authority

James 1:19-27

HEARING AND DOING

Versey Williams, Contributing Writer

Many of us are still in shock from the recent ruling against the use of affirmative action programs during admissions processes at colleges and universities. As I age, I continue to reflect upon my history and the days when our ancestors had no affirmative action. They relied on the sovereignty of their God, who heard their cries, saw the horrific abuse they endured, and helped them create paths that had been blocked, burned, and dismantled by the principalities of people who meant to destroy them and us. Did Richard Allen’s “dungeon really shake, and chains fly off?” I dare say neither could happen without God’s intervention and Allen having the vision, hope, and promise that only God can provide. Bishop Allen did not perish because he gained knowledge about God and the cultural context in which he lived, nor did he become free without human resources.

If we focus on this recent June 29, 2023,

American Supreme Court ruling, it will seem history reverted. As believers in our Sovereign, we still have vision, hope, and promise for the present and future. Now this might upset you; regardless of what we encounter, we must manage our anger. Feelings of anger tell us that we are experiencing an injustice! At the same time, our feelings of annoyance, hostility, and displeasure do not mean we have to let our feelings cause us and others harm.

Satan uses our responses to the injustices that are constantly in our faces. If we listen and yield to our anger, anger will make us feel hopeless, defeated, and devalued as God’s people. We must value our lives. As such, James 1:19-25 reminds us that we should be “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

I am appalled at folks who used affirmative action to sit in their ivory towers and then choose to ignore how they got to the tower! Our anger is appropriate; we should rage for such hypocrisy. We must also hear God’s instruction on managing our anger, “Anger does not produce the righteousness of God!” Putting away rampant

wickedness means we channel our anger to counter evil. Helping others grieve losses and disappointments calms anger and promotes healing.

What can you do to calm anger? How can you help bridge disparities? How can you support parents or caregivers, encouraging them to get the help they might need? Will you volunteer to read to or tutor elementary school-aged children?

God implores us to rise from the pews and the pulpit using the implanted words of God to triumph over human hypocrisy and systemic “isms.” It seems elementary, but practicing the words of God along with social advocacy through board memberships and other civic opportunities to change the course of our communities means we become stronger in proactiveness rather than reactiveness. With or without affirmative action, God provides. Bishop Allen would tell you, “God’s sovereignty includes you.”

The Truth Is the Light

Rev. Dr. Charles R. Watkins, Jr., Columnist

Based on the Biblical Text: Matthew 10:31: “So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

We know that grace, God’s unmerited favor, comes from God through Jesus Christ. We also know that we need grace to inherit eternal life. However, we seldom discuss how God pays careful attention to every detail of our lives through God’s grace.

We cannot miss, reject, or hide from grace because God’s grace is everywhere. Second Corinthians 12:9 reminds us that God’s grace is sufficient. It is sufficient for everything because God is detailed, attending to every detail of our life. God covers our lives with grace.

The Bible says God names his sheep. When we were born, our parents gave us a name. They chose our name carefully because it identifies us for life. When we became a Christian, God recorded our name as his own. It is our identification as a Christian. In the Parable of the Good Shepherd, Jesus says, “…and the sheep hear his voice. God calls his sheep by name and leads them out” (John 10:3). Jesus assures us of our intimate relationship with God through him. We are brothers and sisters in God’s family.

We cannot, however, compare this spiritual family connection we have through Christ to the one we have with our natural brothers and sisters. Our sinful nature causes us to “fall out of love” in a minute with our earthly family over some of the silliest things. We change our phone number, address, and sometimes even our name. But it is different with God! God’s grace will never cut us off. No matter the situation, our name remains the

God Keeps on Blessing You

Michael C. Carson, Local Columnist

Permit me to “go to church!”

As I was listening to American gospel vocalist Beverly Renae Crawford’s vocal selection, “He’s Done Enough,” I just had to enter into a “praise period” and give God some uninterrupted praise and worship!

Crawford shares,

If the Lord never does anything else for me, He’s done enough. If the Lord never does anything else for me, He’s done enough. He’s blessed me once. And He’s blessed me twice. The Lord keeps on blessing me—every day of my life. If the Lord never does anything else for me, He’s done enough!

The Lord has been good to me! And the Lord has made several ways for me. The Lord has opened up So many doors. Brand new mercies I see over and over again. He’s blessed me once. And, He’s blessed me twice. The Lord keeps on blessing me every day of my life. If the Lord Never does anything else for me, He’s done enough. Thank ya!

As I was reflecting on God being my “all-in-all,” I had to sing, pray, cry out, testify, laugh, just sit still, rock back and forth, and speak in tongues. Yeah, I did all of that and much more!

Someone needs to embrace this column today and have yourself a “praise period.”

Sister Kendra Carson shares, “You are doubting yourself; meanwhile, people are wondering how you do it all so effortlessly. Give yourself more credit. God is blessing you in so many ways. Give God thanks.”

Understand that while God is not tied into having to bless you, God is not a “one-shot wonder” nor a “part-time lover.” It’s God’s nature to love and bless you.

same, Child of God.

The Bible says God numbers our hairs. Jesus says in Matthew 10:30, “And even the hairs of your head are all counted.” The truth is, there is nothing about our physical being that God is not keenly aware of. If God cares that much about our bodies, how much more must God care about our souls? In 1 Corinthians 6:19, it says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” If God owns our body, we can be sure he knows everything about it. He knows when we abuse it and when we neglect it. God also knows when we allow the Holy Spirit to keep our mind and body in perfect peace.

The Bible reminds us that God counts our steps. Job (31:4) asks, “Does he not see my ways and number all my steps?” God knows every step we take and where those steps take us. We serve a God who sees and cares, no matter how low we descend. If we trust him, no worry will weaken, no trial will destroy, and no challenge will frighten us. “So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

The Reverend Dr. Charles R. Watkins, Jr., is the pastor of James Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina.

God is in the blessing business! “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Friend, you might not have everything you want but embrace the fact that you are still very blessed!

Sister ShriVonne Beard shares, “I thank God for my mountains and my valleys. God just keeps on blessing me. David declares, ‘I will bless the Lord who guides me; even at night, my heart instructs me. I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice’” (Psalm 16:7-9).

Oh, I hear Evangelist Cathy Carson sharing, “God directs your path and always blesses you extravagantly. Stay focused on the moving of the Lord in your life. God appreciates your being appreciative of God! Beloved, always be filled with thanksgiving” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). According to the gospel of Earth, Wind, and Fire, “Keep your head to the sky!”

My friend, “Lift up [your] eyes to the mountains—where does [your] help come from? [Your] help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).

More Beverly Crawford? I’m glad you asked! “The Lord keeps on blessing me every day of my life. Oh, if the Lord doesn’t do anything else for me, he’s done enough.”

Now give God some more praise and worship!

I’m just saying!

Peace with justice and mercy, be blessed real, real good, attend worship, and families matter.

Dr. Carson can be reached at refreshingcoach@gmail.com.

Swift Transition and a Finished Course

Byron Washington, Columnist

With time certain concepts and ideals become clearer. I grew up hearing and singing “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand.” The part in the song where it says, “…time is filled with swift transition,” has never spoken to me as plainly as in the first six months of 2023. At Christmas of 2022, I had no idea my father would pass away before my birthday in March 2023. Swift Transition. One of my best friends from high school, he and his family came to my father’s funeral. I had not seen them in years. Only to get a call not two weeks later that his younger brother was out playing basketball, had a heart attack, and died. Swift Transition. Then as the summer was picking up the pace and I was preparing to travel with my family for vacation, one of my cousins, who I grew up with, was hospitalized. She was well, and she was doing well. They said it was cancer and just like that, she was gone. Swift Transition. After my cousin passed, the

first verse that came to mind was the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy. Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”

I kept thinking about the part of the verse: “Finished the course.” The reality is that we do not know how long our course is. We are not privy to know the exact distance of the race God has set before us. The Bible says that it is appointed unto man a time to die, meaning that God, in his infinite wisdom, knows when our course will end. That one day, we will round the corner of life and come face to face with the finish line. Whether we are ready or not or feel as if we have done all we need to do, we must cross that line then.

The world tells you that mid-life is 50, meaning they assume you will reach 100 years old. My cousin was just into her 40’s, meaning her midlife was around 21 years old. My best friend’s

18th Episcopal District Holds Midyear Meeting

Rev. Solomon J.G. Nxumalo, Retired Presiding Elder (Eswatini Annual Conference)

brother was in his 30s; when he was 17, he was in his mid-life. This message is not one of doom and gloom, but it should cause us all to consider: What have I been putting off?

What dream, what goal has God placed in my heart that I continue to think about but never do? What idea should I have a sense of urgency about, yet I am taking my time?

My brothers and sisters, whatever God calls you to do, make up your mind. Do not wait until your mind finally says “yes” and your mortal body says “no.” We are halfway through the year, and you should have been done by now with that project, and you have not even started. Start now; why? Because time is filled with swift transition.

The 2023 Mid-Year Conference of the 18 th Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church met in Maseru, Lesotho, on 19-21 April 2023 under the Quadrennial theme “God Our Healer.” At this Mid-Year Conference, the emphasis was on Year Three: “Healing Our Minds.”

Members of the 18 th Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church convened in their numbers in Maseru, Lesotho from Mozambique, Eswatini, Botswana, and from different parts of Lesotho. Bishop Vicentia Kgabe of the Anglican Church of Lesotho, the Rev. Dr. John Green, director of Global Witness and Ministry, AME Church, and Taylor West, an information technology expert, attended this Mid-Year Conference. This time around, Bishop Francine A. Brookins, Esq., prelate of the 18 th Episcopal District of the AME Church, and Dr. Rev Miriam J. Burnett were in attendance.

The Mid-Year Conference opening sermon was by the Rev. Bongumusa Sizwe Qwabe, presiding elder, Hhohho District, in the Eswatini Annual Conference. The sermon scripture was from John 5:2-14. The preacher stressed Jesus’ words, “Do you want to get well? Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” The powerful message stressed the theme, “God Our Healer.”

After the roll call and a powerful and wonderful opening worship service sermon, the bishop thanked all the members of the 18 th for attending. She then outlined the proceedings of the Conference and immediately introduced and taught a key mid-year subject, Mandatory Sexual Abuse Training. She set off to define sexual misconduct as abusive conditions within the church and abuse of power by those in leadership, to name a couple. Concluding, the bishop requested members to make the climate in the church warm, one that will make everyone happy to be in the church, that drives every member to want to go to church on Sunday.

The bishop raised a number of issues, among which were that the clergy must be trained and that before a pastor is transferred, there must be a background check through screening; clergy misconduct was off limits noting that any form of abuse must be reported immediately in writing; members should watch the following: The mouth, the hands, the eyes, sending of pictures [especially nude], and texting. She further indicated the possibility of drafting a

policy to address this subject. The bishop further highlighted the issue of same-sex marriage, which she said was discussed in the last General Conference. There was then a question and answer session.

After lunch, components met. The Lay Organisation had a workshop in which the 18 th Episcopal District president emphasised that Lay members should adhere to The Book of Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and work on the “Recruitment Strategy.” Lay Organisation involves everybody in the church, be it WMS, YPD, RAYAC, stewards, trustees, etc.

In the evening, the Rev. B. S. Ntshangase conducted a cultural activity allowing each Conference of the 18 th to display its culture. It was a highly charged evening, with each Conference relating it to a Bible verse and the Bible verse, to their culture. In thanking God for saving them from the floods, the Mozambique Conference quoted Mark 5:1-34, and the Lesotho Conference sang their king’s praises, quoting 2 Kings 2:19. COVID-19 had separated the bishop from the members of the 18 th for some time. At the end of the presentation, in her remarks, she said: “I have longed to see you and feel you.” And she said, “If you want to destroy a tree, pull it out by its roots,” and added, “Please do not let anyone or anything destroy your roots.”

What did Dr. Green, the guest to the 18 th Episcopal District, do? He taught two very interesting and vital subjects: Church Administrationand Management and Local Church Organisation . These two subjects are key to the life of the church. It was interesting to note in his teaching that church administration is tied up with people and that good leaders are good followers. He further clarified that church administration is a process that makes us understand that we cannot do the work by ourselves. He further advised pastors and members of the 18 th that there is no lifetime position in the church; the church does not belong to anybody but to God, and therefore the position you hold is a gift that God has given you. He urged pastors to understand that good administration did not need micro-management. He asked the pastors to follow the example of Jesus, to be always available and open to all members of their churches.

Those pastors who had done the theological course at Turner Theological Seminary were then introduced to the Conference as having succeeded in their studies. The Reverend Dr. John Green welcomed them to the Turner family.

The guest speaker, Dr. John Green, was introduced to deliver a sermon

for the opening worship service. It was from the book of Romans 12:2 that Dr. John Green preached. He presented a powerful message asking the Conference, “What time is it?” One could not help to understand that it was time for excellent church administration and management and proper local church organisation. He asked time and again, “What time is it?

On the last day, component reports followed devotions. From the Presiding Elders’ Council Report came an invitation

from Botswana to host the 18 th Episcopal District Planning Meeting in December. Swaziland was tasked to design a school website to include Lesotho.

The last day, 20 April 2023, had the Opening Devotions, the continuation of Components Reports, and Project Updates. Then there was the Closing Worship Service and Commissioning, followed by lunch-to-go. Bishop Vicentia Kgabe of the Anglican Church in Lesotho preached from the book of Romans 12:1-8 basing it on “do not conform,” followed by the Commissioning Service ❏ ❏ ❏

The History of St. James AME Church, Texarkana, Arkansas

Rev. Larry Ross

St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Texarkana, Arkansas, has a very strange history. The church and the city of Texarkana were founded in the same year. Texarkana in April and St. James in August of 1873.

As a memorial to our foreparents and the pioneers of the present church, we are handing down this record of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church.

According to the Arkansas State Registry Office, St. James AME Church is probably the first but truly the oldest black church in Texarkana, Arkansas. The church was established at 617 Laurel Street in the Bannister home in 1873. Parishioners built the church on the same lot. The church was there for 27 years. During this time, the king of ragtime music, Scott Joplin, lived down the street from St. James. When he was about 9 or 10, he played the piano at St. James on occasion before he moved on to higher levels of his music career. The original church burned down, but with the faithfulness of dedicated members, in 1900, another building was erected on the same spot. The building was remodeled in 1918. Approximately ten years later, the building was moved to 615 Laurel Street. The membership of St. James was between three and four hundred at the time of its move.

Saint James has been the mother to two other churches as well. In 1917, a church sprang from St. James as a convenience church. Some members who lived in the iron mountain also organized a church in their neighborhood in the home of Brother Frank and Sister Hannah Holmes, with the Moore sisters as charter members. The church was named Stinson Chapel AME Church. It is not known how long the church existed.

In 1924, some of St. James’ members withdrew and established a church on Pine Street in Texarkana, Texas, under the leadership of the Rev. Matthews, a former pastor of St. James. The church, Johnson Chapel, moved to West 14 th Street. The church is no longer in operation. Johnson Chapel was torn down, but there is a thriving AME Church in Texarkana, Texas, Hamilton Memorial AME Church.

Saint James has produced five ministers: the Reverends W. E. Scott, McKinley, Lee G. Nard, Milton Tucker, and James Larkins. St. James of Texarkana has been the head of the district and has hosted several annual conferences and district meetings.

Some other pastors appointed to St. James are the Reverends White (1889); W. M. Winston (1900); R. Mitchell (1921); Weaver; Claybon; W. M. Wingfield; D.D. Cole; J. W. Nelson; C. A. Miles (1934); R. T. Thomas; and C.B. Brewster. The Reverend Dixon was the first pastor appointed in 1873.

The Reverend C. B. Brewster was the pastor when the church was on Laurel Street, where it burned down in 1942. The members worshipped in a school building on Laurel Street until a new church building was erected at a new site at Tenth and Ash Streets, still under the leadership of the

Rev. Brewster. The new building was dedicated in 1944, during World War II.

Other pastors were the Reverends Bracey, who organized the first junior stewardess board; E. Kingsby; George West; J. H. Covington, who oversaw improvements to the parsonage; A.C. Burton; Reddick; Kirk; B. F. Lunon, and Jimmy Jones, who helped to remodel the church in 1961. The Reverend Green Paschal, in 1963, incorporated the Young People’s Division. The Rev. L. M. Goodwin led the overall remodeling of the parsonage.

The church was graced twice with the leadership of the son of our former pastor, the Rev. R. T. Thomas. This son, the Rev. R. N. Thomas, also served as presiding elder twice. Also, the church was pastored by the Rev. L. R. McNeal, who organized the McNealaires (one of the choirs). Although the Rev. Wm. S. Bush was never

assigned to pastor St. James, may our records show that he did serve faithfully as an associate pastor.

On June 18, 1978, St. James AME Church on Tenth Street was gutted by fire. But by the spiritual leadership and the dedicated, devoted members, St. James AME did not give in to the destruction; they pressed upward and onward in the midst of this setback under the leadership of the pastor, the Rev. L. T. Trammell, Presiding Elder R. N. Thomas, and Presiding Prelate Bishop F. C. James. The membership continued to worship with city government permission in the Miller County Courthouse for three years. The Reverend Jimmy Thomas led the congregation to its new and still current home at 938 Ash Street on December 20, 1918. The congregation held a dedication service on March 28, 1982.

In 2019, under the leadership of the Rev. L. W. Ross, the church was again hit by a major winter storm that destroyed the church. The storm destroyed the entire sanctuary, but God’s grace allowed the fellowship hall to remain. God opened doors allowing us to remodel the sanctuary within four to five months with the support of a non-denominational church in Fouke, Arkansas, and the leadership of Bro. Eric Stuckey and Bro. Duke.

On August 13, 2023, St. James AME Church celebrated 150 years, knowing that God continues to bless and guide us through our journey. All glory to God. ❏ ❏ ❏

...From The African p10

Lessons Learned From Sunflowers: Nurturing the Bewildered

Rev. Dr. Debra A. Whitlock Lax

Saturday night (6/17/2023), my husband and I rescued the sunflowers I am growing from their turbulent environment.  The zephyr winds on my balcony were bending the sunflowers to what appeared to be their breaking point.   By the time we decided to move them back indoors, the wind had torn the leaves.  The plants were well-watered on Saturday and throughout the previous week. I did not water them on Sunday for fear of over-watering.   All the plants were thriving this morning (6/19) except one (pictured above). However, it appeared to be wilted, bent over, and dying.  I decided to give it care and nourish it. Is it going to respond to my efforts? I realized quickly that it was not my responsibility to get the plant to respond but to try different tactics to see if it would change the outcome.  At the end of the day, the plant’s internal systems at the cellular level had to open up and receive life-giving substances. I showered it with lots of water and checked on the plant an hour later. There was no change in its appearance - no sign of revival. I decided to sprinkle about half

a teaspoon of sugar on the potting soil surface, followed by another 1/2  inch of water.  (Ugh! Was I overwatering it?)  I came back an hour later to discover that the plant had perked up.  It responded to sweet water! The leaves had spread. The stems were standing relatively straight.

The Son’s Spiritual Lesson

Our words are like sweet water to a bent-over, weary soul.  We can make a difference in a person’s life simply by how we speak, the energy we give, and how we respond to people.  Some people are bent over in their hearts.  They may not show it!  We do not necessarily see what’s going on behind the eyes. Thus, a kind word and a welcomed response are simply nourishment to the weary heart if they are open to receiving. By the way, it is not your responsibility to get a bewildered person to respond positively; it’s the condition of the heart that yields to kindness or negativity.  However, try different tactics.  Speak anyway.  Be kind anyway.  Be loving anyway.  Jesus keeps loving the proverbial wilted sunflowers no matter their response.  His

ultimate demonstration of love and final tactic to give life was to die on the cross.  Unfortunately, some weary souls will not respond even to his ultimate demonstration of love, nourishment, and care.

Life Application

The embittered soul may be so closed at the root that it will not respond to “sweet water”; however, God sees your heart. Keep moving in the spirit of the ministry of reconciliation.  Be sweet, kind, gentle, humble, patient, long-suffering, nurturing, and nourishing. Demonstrate the fruit of God’s Spirit - only God can heal and deliver the wounded soul from wilt and despair.  God gives each person a new heart. Why? Because, without the new heart, we do not live, nor can we respond to the grace shown to us.   God is able to transform souls that are wilted, drying, and dying.  God is using you to be his sweet water.  Be another person’s proverbial sweet water. Rescue a soul from bleak bewilderment and nurture and encourage them to live a life that thrives in the Lord.

Dr. Sidney Williams Awarded the Locke Innovative Leader Award

On April 30, 2023, the Rev. Dr. Sidney S. Williams Jr., pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, Morristown, New Jersey, and chief executive officer of Crossing Capital Group, was awarded the esteemed Wesleyan Partners, Locke Innovative Leader Award. The Locke Award recognizes those who exemplify innovative spiritual leadership and mission-driven entrepreneurship. The Wesleyan believes the mixed

ecology of traditional congregations and innovative faith communities requires a diversity of leaders, particularly those with an entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to see beyond existing practices and models. They honor innovative leaders who have taken risks to bring about a better world where more people know God’s love.

...continued on p14

Quinn Chapel Historical Marker

The Captain Charles Barham Chapter of the National Colonial Dames XVII Century recognized Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Paris, Tennessee, for 156 years of service of worship, justice, and liberation. The Colonial Dames XVII Century announced this was the first African American Church in the state of Tennessee and the United States of America.

The recognition included a historical marker pl aced on the church and a service of honor and appreciation. Persons, in addition to national representatives of the Colonial Dames XVII Century and the local chapter, represented various governmental organizations, the community, and the AME Church.

This historical award is noteworthy because to be a member of the organization, one must be a woman of eighteen years who is a lineal descendant of an ancestor who lived and served prior to 1701 in one of the original colonies in the United States.

The Thirteenth Episcopal District salutes the Rev. Dr. John Dandridge, pastor, and members of Quinn Chapel AME Church for its consistent contribution to the Paris community. In 2022, Quinn Chapel was honored for its inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Rev. Otto Duncan, a former pastor of Quinn, provided a history of the church. Quinn was known as a place of safety for black soldiers during WWII who served at Camp Tyson and provided early education for African Americans who were denied education due to segregation. The Henry County Training School educated students from grades one through eight. The school was adjacent to the Quinn Chapel on land owned by the church. The church within its walls provided an adult business school operated by and taught by the Rev. Dr. Herman W. Henning, who was also the pastor during the late 1940s. Mrs. Elizabeth Miller Henning also taught music to the community.

Other speakers at the ceremony included Chapter president Mary Ann

Claxton, Bicentennial Committee chair Carl Holder, current Quinn Chapel minister, the Rev. Dr. John Dandridge, and the Rt. Rev. E. Anne HenningByfield. Several officials with the Colonial Dames also spoke, including Carole Fields, president of the Tennessee Society, and Mary Stagg Johnston, honorary president-general of the Tennessee State Society.

The Reverend Dr. John Dandridge concluded the service with thanksgiving and the declaration that the church would continue to demonstrate the legacy of Bishop Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Rev. Janie Dowdy Dandridge, wife of Dr. Dandridge and pastor of Brown AME Church, pronounced the benediction.

Philadelphia Pastor, the Rev. Albert Johnson, Preaches a Stirring Eulogy for His Mom

Sister Angelena

Spears, Philadelphia Conference Reporter

It was unquestionably the hardest task that the Rev. Albert Johnson, pastor of Mt. Tabor African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had ever faced. On Tuesday, June 20, 2023, he stood in the pu lpit of his church in front of family, church family, ministry colleagues, and friends – and eulogized his mom, Mrs. Doris H. Johnson.

Colleagues who had come from across the Philadelphia District, including his former presiding elder, the Rev. Dr. Natalie Alford, supported Pastor Johnson, and the cards and resolutions shared were heartfelt.

Joining him in the pu lpit included the Rev. Jacqueline Capers, the pastor of Disney Nichols AME ChurchPhiladelphia, who did everything in the role of officiant to make certain it was a service of “celebration.” Early in the service, the Rev. Capers declared that if the Holy Spirit would join them, they would definitely get through it.

Other colleagues in ministry who participated in the service were the Rev. Glenn Shepherd, pastor of Bethel AME Church, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, who read the New Testament scripture, and the Rev. Lois Wilkinson, pastor of Shorter AME Church, Morton, Pennsylvania, who gave

the prayer of comfort.

Providing measurable comfort for all, the Rev. Juanita Hall-Walters, the recently retired pastor of Greater Mount Olive AME Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sang with power a medley of songs that included selections from: “I Will Make the Darkness Light Before You,” “It Is Well With My Soul,” and “When I See Jesus, Amen.”

The Reverend Johnson preached the eulogy around Philippians 4:10-13, 19, where Paul writes, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances…I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” He titled the eulogy “The Story of a Strong Black Woman,” and he wove the message around the biblical text as well as Langston Hughes’ famous poem, “Life for Me Ain’t Been No Crystal Stair.”

Just like in the Langston Hughes poem shared by the Rev. Johnson, his mom’s life had not been a crystal stair. It was not always easy. Her life had included a life of struggle, pain, and sacrifice. He declared that his mom and dad, James Johnson, had raised five children, and the journey had included times living in the Philadelphia projects. And yet, ...continued on p14

he remembered that despite any challenges, his mom had always exemplified unconditional love and unshakable faith. She had commanded all five of her children to “never turn around in the face of life’s challenges,” and she had scolded them against using excuses.

“She would not let us quit,” remembered the Rev.

Johnson. Instead, she instilled in them that they could indeed do all things through Christ.

“When you believe you can do all things through Christ, then you don’t have to make any excuses for yourself,” she had often said. “When you have Christ in your life, you will replace fear and failure with faith and success!”

Recipients of the Locke Innovative Leader Award are invited to join past recipients in a facilitated cohort to support and network with each other and the growing community of spiritual entrepreneurs across the mixed ecology of churches and faith traditions. Additionally, they each receive $50,000, to be used at their discretion to steward their growing leadership and innovative potential further.

For over thirty years, the Rev. Williams has led diverse efforts to provide access to capital to marginalized communities. In 2008, he pioneered a social impact model, Fishing Differently™, an asset-based approach to community development that provides access to capital for BIPOC anchor institutions, serves under-resourced communities across America, and advises them on how to strategically respond to the disorienting effects of gentrification, disproportionate unemployment, and the changing local demographics by harnessing the power of their F.I.S.H. (Faith, Intellectual, Social, Human) capital.

Mrs. Doris H. Johnson is survived by her five children, a sister, eleven grandchildren, and a host of great-grandchildren.

The members of the Philadelphia Conference ask your continued prayers for the Rev. Albert Johnson and his wife, Sister Vivian Johnson, and the entire Johnson family. ❏ ❏ ❏

Williams is the CEO of Fishing Differently™ inspired company Crossing Capital Group and founder and board chair of the Oikos Institute for Social Impact, both carrying out the mission of helping faith communities and other anchor institutions harness the power of their assets to be a catalyst for communal transformation and economic renewal. Bethel AME also thrives because of the Fishing Differently™ model by providing hot meals five days a week and grocery bags to three towns weekly with the Table of Hope, managed by Spring Street Community Development Corporation.

From September 20–22, 2023, the Rev. Williams’ team will connect faith-based leaders and place investors to help anchor institutions harness the power of their assets for communal transformation and economic development at their 2023 Fishing Differently™ Conference in Chicago, Illinois. Please go to the Oikos Institute for Social Impacts event page for more information about transformational convening.

Submitted by Oikos Institute for Social Impact.

Vexed by Quailing Attendance, Sex Abuse, and Internal Feuds, SBC Takes on Women Pastors

MORE THAN 12,000 LOCAL CHURCH REPRESENTATIVES, KNOWN AS MESSENGERS, WILL GATHER IN NEW ORLEANS, READY TO DO THEIR DENOMINATION’S BUSINESS.

June 12, 2023

Bob Smietana

Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention’s constituent churches has been plummeting, its national leaders are feuding or quitting, and any good work the denomination could boast about has been largely overshadowed by a sex abuse crisis.

Just this week, one of the SBC’s major seminaries announced that its leaders had run up $140 million in deficits over the past two decades, depleting the school’s reserve and leaving it in an ongoing financial crisis.

Alongside these existential challenges, Southern Baptists, like other Americans, have indulged in the nation’s ongoing “woke wars,” in which discussion of policy governing race, education, and other issues quickly devolves into a shouting match, especially on social media.

All these factors threaten to erode the SBC’s socalled “rope of sand” — bonds of trust, rather than official hierarchy or legal ownership, that bind together the 40,000 churches and 13 million members of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Yet most of the denomination’s adversity will be overshadowed during the SBC’s annual meeting in New Orleans by a slow-simmering debate that has heated up among Baptists over the past few years: What should be done about the handful of women who serve as pastors at SBC churches?

During the opening day of the SBC’s annual meeting, which runs June 13-14, thousands of local church delegates, known as messengers, will consider appeals from a pair of congregations that have been expelled for employing women as pastors, which conflicts with the denomination’s statement of faith. The messengers are also expected to debate a

proposed constitutional amendment that would make it clear that churches with women pastors cannot be part of the SBC.

The SBC Executive Committee voted Monday (June 12) to approve placing the amendment before the messengers, or delegates, during this year’s meeting. But they also noted their opposition to changing the constitution to address the debate, with some members saying during the meeting that the faith statement is the place for such doctrinal issues.

“While the messengers to the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting entrusted the Executive Committee with this motion, we recognize the significance of the matter at this given time and therefore believe it is prudent to place the referred motion before the entire body of messengers,” the committee stated, “while also expressing our opposition to the suggested amendment to SBC Constitution Article III.”

At stake at the meeting is not only the role of women in the church but a broader question about how closely a church

...From Philadelphia p13

...From Dr. Sidney p12

needs to identify overall with the Baptist Faith & Message to remain “in friendly cooperation” with the convention.

Southern Baptists have long argued over the role of women in the church. In 1885, a group of Virginia women showed up at the annual meeting as messengers. Baptist leaders admitted that no rule barred their presence but barred them anyway, then changed the rules so that only “brethren” were allowed. The rules were later changed back.

In 2000, the statement of faith was updated to hold that men and women are “gifted for service in the church” but restricts the office of pastor to men alone. Some believe that means women cannot do any of the things that male pastors do — lead a church, preach during worship services, or oversee both men and women. Others say that only the office of senior pastor of a church is limited to men. Yet for decades, women served as missionaries, teaching and sometimes preaching. In the 1960s, women began to serve as SBC pastors, with their number growing to at least several hundred by the 1980s. That changed after the so-called Conservative Resurgence took over the convention and drove off more moderate Baptists who supported women pastors. Other women pastors left on their own, feeling no longer welcome. Still, some remain.

At Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, the Rev. Linda Popham has served for 40 years, the last 30 as senior pastor. The churches hold to a 1963 version of the Baptist Faith & Mission, which makes no mention of gender when it comes to pastors.

Fern Creek was among five churches removed from the SBC in February for having female pastors — the first time that the denomination has acted on a national level to do so. Fern Creek will appeal that decision this week, as will another disfellowshipped church, Saddleback Church in California, founded by bestselling author Rick Warren. After Warren’s retirement last year, Stacie Wood was named teaching pastor beside her husband, senior pastor Andy Wood.

Popham, who spent last week at her church’s Vacation Bible School, said the move to kick her church out of the SBC is baffling. The church works closely with its local Baptist association and state convention, gives to SBC missions, does door-to-door evangelism, and runs a host of SBC-related programs. A lifelong Baptist, she has served on state committees, hosted SBC leaders at her church, and gone on a dozen international mission trips.

“We have been in friendly cooperation with the SBC all these years,” she said. “It makes no sense. What happened in the last two years?”

The answer has much to do with Donald Trump

and the SBC’s abuse crisis. The current debate over women pastors and preachers actually goes back to 2019, when the popular Southern Baptist Bible teacher Beth Moore referred on Twitter to a recent appearance she’d made at a church on Mother’s Day. Moore had already earned the ire of some Baptist leaders for being critical of Trump’s treatment of women. Her Mother’s Day tweet gave her opponents a doctrinal weapon.

At the time, the SBC was dealing with the fallout of a Houston Chronicle report that found hundreds of cases of sexual abuse in recent decades by SBC pastors and church leaders. Then the conversation changed.

“We were in the middle of the biggest sexual abuse scandal that has ever hit our denomination,” she told Religion News Service in 2021. “And suddenly, the most important thing to talk about was whether or not a woman could stand at the pulpit and give a message.”

Moore would eventually leave the SBC altogether.

The debate over women pastors blew up again in 2021 after Saddleback Church announced it had ordained three women on staff as pastors. That led to calls to kick Saddleback, and churches like it, out.

Mike Law, the Virginia pastor who proposed the amendment to bar churches with women pastors, has compiled a list of 170 women. Fewer than a third are senior pastors. The rest are associate pastors, children’s pastors, or fill other staff roles. The amendment, if passed, would only allow churches to cooperate with the SBC if they do not “affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

Popham says she knows some of the current women pastors in the SBC. Most, she said, served away from the spotlight, doing the work of the Gospel. She worries that the move to kick out any church that has any woman with the title of pastor will be harmful to all women.

“I think it sends a clear message to other women in the convention,” said Popham, who got her first job in ministry while a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. “We don’t want you, and we need you to be quiet.”

The continued focus on women in the church has been exhausting, said Bible teacher and author Jacki King.

“A big chunk of Southern Baptists are just really discouraged,” said King, who is the minister to women at Second Baptist Church in Conway, Arkansas, where her husband is pastor.

King said she believes only men should be pastors, but the recent conflicts, she said, have cast suspicion on any woman who holds a significant role or even speaks at events when both men and women are present. King found herself under fire a few years ago for speaking during a chapel

service at a Christian college, which was seen by critics as a violation of scripture.

The conflict has left outsiders to see Southern Baptists primarily as people who cut each other and fight, she said.

“There’s more happening by friendly fire than us actually like being attacked by anything outside,” she said. “I just keep being discouraged at how people are treating one another.”

Despite the tensions, women still want to serve in the church, said King. She pointed to the consistent presence of women at SBC seminaries and other schools of theology.

Women make up almost 1 in 4 (24%) students at Southern Seminary, the SBC’s flagship seminary, and at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas (24%). A third of the students at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina this spring were women, and nearly that many (29%) were at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, according to data supplied by the seminaries.

Few faculty are women, ranging from 4% at Southern to 12% at New Orleans Seminary. Those female faculty tend to hold positions related to counseling, education, women’s ministry, or libraries.

Nationwide, women make up about 10% of clergy in the United States, according to the 2020 Faith Communities Today study. About a third (32%) of mainline Protestant churches had women pastors. Only 4% of evangelical congregations have a woman pastor.

Katie J. McCoy, an author and former seminary professor, and now director of women’s ministry for Texas Baptists, said that women still want to learn theology in order to understand the Bible better. In her role, she helps run education programs for women leaders at churches, putting her experience as a seminary professor to work on a statewide basis.

She said she’s hopeful that many younger pastors care about doctrine but also want to empower women in the church.

“One of the great things happening in the SBC today is millennial pastors who recognize the need to champion the gifts of women,” she said. “They don’t want to be part of all the infighting.”

Popham said that she would speak to the convention next week, making the case that Fern Creek should be allowed to stay. She’s been given three minutes for the appeal — and wants to be precise and truthful.

“I want to make sure that I bring glory to the name of Christ,” she said. “I want to make sure I speak the truth in love.” ❏ ❏ ❏

led insightful institutes as he focused on teaching and training us to be better stewards of God’s business both in the sanctuary and our communities. The Sons of Allen, Lay Organization, and the Young People’s Department led the night sessions with FIRE (Faith Impulse Resilience and Expectancy). The Young People’s Division led the final night of worship with a dynamic mixture of worship and culture as they showcased their talents in performing arts.

The Blue Mountain and Pedro Plain districts joined in a jubilant song for each Hour of Power as we prepared to report on all the Lord had done for the Annual Conference. Each component of the church cast its visions as their reports reflected their growth throughout the conference year. Each church reported missions and various efforts to Show People Love And Share Him (S.P.L.A.S.H.). These included community feedings, game nights, workout sessions, hosting food, clothes, and back-to-school drives. Each church shared the common accomplishment of giving their time and gifts to persons within their respective communities and their members.

Are We Yet Alive! The 111th Session of the Jamaica Annual Conference

Joan Phillips-Bennett, YPD Director, 16th Episcopal District

Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and the king of glory shall come in! Glory and praise to almighty God for a successful conference! April 19 - 23, 2023, proved to be a rekindling of the Jamaica Annual Conference. This year marked the 111 th Session of the Jamaica Annual Conference under the leadership of Bishop Marvin Clyde Zanders II and Supervisor Winifred Houston Zanders. With hearts open, we stood in total expectancy for God to move us through each session. We pushed through the REEF (Rejuvenating Everything and Eliminating Fear) and focused on the promises of God.

The conference’s flagship church, Chapel of Christ Our Redeemer AME Church in Kingston, Jamaica, pastored by the Rev. Dr. Emily A. Pardue, hosted all preconference and conference activities. The Women’s Missionary Society (WMS) and Women in Ministry (WIM) kicked the conference off with pre-conference sessions followed by a wonderful candlelight service that evening. The service reminded us that no one has the power to dim our light as long as we stay connected to our power source.

The official opening of the conference happened the next day. It paraded in the presence of the Holy Spirit into the sanctuary and built the momentum that would carry through the rest of the days for the Annual Conference. Worship, business, and prayer were the pillars that guided our sessions and unified us to do the work of God within our various components.

Bishop Zanders II

We continued to celebrate God’s hand in our efforts as the members of the conference traveled to Gaines Memorial Chapel AME for their dedicatory service. They reconsecrated their sanctuary to the Lord under the leadership of the pastor, the Rev. Newton Dixon. Great Are You, Lord was the proclamation that opened the service as Bishop Zanders II reminded us that despite the unfavourable circumstances we face as believers in Christ, the church is still God’s vehicle of liberation and reconciliation.

Members attended in great numbers after two consecutive years of virtual annual conferences. We praised God for bringing us this far and for the opportunity to fellowship once more with each other. We spent five days conducting business and worshiping the Lord under the theme: “Serving the Lord With Determined Faith.” Indeed, we did! The annual conference’s closing day ended with a special moment to memorialize the ...continued on p18

Justice Thomas: An Insult to Uncle Tom

Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher, San Diego Voice & ViewpointNewspaper

former pastor of the host church and presiding elder of the Blue Mountain District, Presiding Elder Rev. Florance Marie McElroy, on the eve of her birthday. After which, members of the conference stayed at the edge of their seats for the highly anticipated appointments and a charge by our bishop to share God’s love in what we do and say. We are grateful for God’s never-ending favour and stand in expectancy, believing God has much more in store for us! ❏ ❏ ❏

Taylor Christian Recorder Announcement

CHRIS 180, the Atlanta-based nonprofit organization dedicated to providing traumainformed mental health services for children, youth, and families, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Lisa B. Taylor, DMin, MDiv, MSSL, ACPE CEC, as the new director of the Institute for Spiritual Health. In her new role, Dr. Taylor will provide leadership and vision as the Accredited Certified Pastoral Educator (ACPE) for the organization’s Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program with Northside Hospital’s Atlanta and Gwinnett locations.

Dr. Taylor is an ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a former pastor of New Seed of Faith AME Church in Tarrant City, Alabama. She has more than 27 years of experience in business, nonprofit management, and ministry leadership.

Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, her most recent employment was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the third-largest freestanding behavioral health hospital in the United States as the manager of Pastoral Services and Clinical Pastoral Education program. While there, she managed the daily department operations and educated ACPE Clinical Pastoral Education students.

Dr. Taylor holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing, along with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communication Studies from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, a Master in Strategic Leadership Degree from Mountain State University in Beckley, West Virginia, a

Master of Divinity Degree from Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and a Doctor of Ministry Degree with a concentration in Professional Education and Leadership from the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, Michigan.

Her dissertation, “Soul Work and the Transformative Process in CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education),” addresses the importance of soul work in transformation and learning in CPE as a means of educating and equipping pastoral/ spiritual care providers so that they are more self-aware, emotionally intelligent, spiritually intelligent, authentic, and effective in ministry delivery.

A number of people in the African American community knew about the character of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas before his appointment to the high court. In fact, it was considered a disgrace to replace someone with the character, intellect, and commitment to the struggle of black people with the likes of Clarence Thomas. When the great debate during his confirmation hearing over the allegations from attorney Anita Hill surfaced, and Thomas accused his detractors of committing a legal lynching of him, there was a shortness of sympathy for a man who should never have been nominated in the first place. His subsequent inaction on the court and his conservative-leaning almost always against anything that benefited black people earned him the name “Uncle Tom” instead of “Justice Thomas.”

But it is time to set the record straight. The Uncle Tom of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin , had real character. While he appeared to be subservient and docile as a good slave, those characteristics were used to help him disguise the good he was actually doing to help others. Uncle Tom had a character that allowed him to put himself at risk to help others. Justice Clarence Thomas, on the hand, has shown that he is about helping himself first and always.

The favors, money, and deals with his billionaire friends, his wife’s support of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and the lie that they never discussed matters of the January 6 riot in which people lost their lives, all reveal what some of us already knew from the beginning, that Justice Thomas was and is always about his interest and not the people.

Let us no longer insult the life and story of Uncle Tom, which Stowe based on the reallife slave Josia Henson. Let us just call Thomas the person without character who he is and call for his impeachment, which we know will never happen in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where impeachment proceedings must start before they reach the Senate.

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As a “soul work practitioner,” Dr. Taylor loves to connect with people soul-to-soul around stories, creating sacred spaces for people to be seen, heard, and known. She is passionate about equipping people with the tools they need to face adversity to maximize their potential, excel at life, and do

Let’s just call him Clarence Thomas and know who he really is. ❏ ❏ ❏

Philadelphia Suburban Church Engages in Outreach to Local HBCU

Angelena Spears, Philadelphia Conference Reporter

When Cheyney University students stopped by the Thornbury African Methodist Episcopal Church table during a recent health fair on campus, they received much more than free COVID-19 vaccines. They received an authentic invitation to visit the church, which is within walking distance of the university.

Thornbury AMEC is in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, a suburban community 17 miles west of Philadelphia. The church is within a mile of the university, which touts itself as the oldest standing historically black college and university in the United States.

The church’s new pastor, the Rev. Angela Baker, was front and center all day during the May event. She extended hugs and greetings to the students and engaged with them in friendly conversations.

In addition to a table full of health-related brochures, which included information on mental health and suicide prevention, there was a four-foot-high sign that read: “Stop If You Need Prayer.” Several students accepted the invitation for prayer and joined hands in a circle with the Rev. Baker and a few Thornbury members. Because it was the week of final exams, the prayers also included wishes that they would do well.

This was not the first time the church (established in Glen Mills in 1840) has engaged in an outreach ministry at the university, which has been in the community since 1837.

Sandy Clarke is the local church school superintendent at Thornbury and pro tem of the steward board. She said the church’s youth membership has declined over the years, and she hoped today’s outreach effort could help to change that.

Clarke remembers when there was a gospel choir at Cheyney, and they would often come to the church to sing. However, that was ten years ago, and there is no longer a choir at the school. Longtime church member Anita Craig has played a pivotal role in efforts to establish a relationship between the church and the university. Craig, a Thornbury member for 20 years and a missionary, says the turnover of staff at the university can make it challenging to find the correct “contact persons” there.

In addition to staff turnover at Cheyney, the church has had a somewhat frequent change in leadership: The Rev. Baker is the fourth pastor to serve the church in the last ten years. Despite the challenges, the church has remained constant in doing whatever it can to be visible to students on campus and to let them know they are welcome

the work their souls must have.

to come and worship with them.

During the interaction with the students, the Rev. Baker asked what their generation was looking for in a church, and several students offered their opinions.

Two sophomores, Isysis and Kadelia, were among the students who shared their opinions with the Rev. Baker. Both girls had grown up in their home churches and said they had sung in their church choirs and loved to praise dance – and the Rev. Baker told them their gifts would be welcome at Thornbury.

Kadelia, a sociology major, stressed the importance of a pastor not being judgmental. In one of her former churches, she said there had been a pastor who (in her opinion) was homophobic – and that type of thinking doesn’t work, she said.

Kadelia said the music young people listen to is different, and younger people might need to learn the older hymns. She said that for the younger generation to understand worship with an older

CHRIS 180’s Institute for Spiritual Health is committed to providing spiritual care to cultivate healing, transformation, and nurturing relationships. Dr. Taylor’s leadership will help strengthen the

generation, “When you minister - you may have to dumb it down.”

She stressed the importance of having a church that could relate to the concerns of young people and said she appreciated that the Thornbury members had prayed for the students to do well on their exams.

Isysis, studying psychology and early childhood education, said it is important not to generalize churches – because some can relate to young people and some do not. She said that although many churches lack youthful pastors “you don’t have to be younger to reach younger audiences.”

Although the health fair was held during the last week of classes, the Rev. Baker and the Thornbury members are hopeful that the young people will respond to their offer and join them when they return to the campus in the fall.

The Rev. Baker is confident that when the students come to Thornbury, they will find a caring church that is receptive to their needs.

organization’s community of practice around spiritual care, health, and wellness and grow its outreach to the faith community.

Send congratulations to Dr. Lisa B. Taylor at Lisa.Taylor@chris180.org or contact her at 470-676-0858. ❏ ❏ ❏

...From Taylor p18

AME’s Brent Jones Is #1 on Billboard!

Grammy and Stellar Award winner Brent Jones’ hit single “Nothing Else Matters” is #1 on Billboard. With over 40 weeks cumulatively on the music charts, Brent Jones’ anthem “Nothing Else Matters” is the breakout song of the year, earning widespread critical acclaim and multiple award nominations.

“What an honor to reach #1 on Billboard with ‘Nothing Else Matters.’ The past year has been such an exciting time for my career - from my song’s movie debut on the Hallmark Channel, my soldout European tour, my new radio show on Las Vegas’ Power 88.1 FM, to my artist-in-residence at Stanford, I’m over the moon! A special shout to my incredible team - JDI Entertainment, Sony The Orchard, and all the radio stations around the world who support my music-thank you!” says Brent Jones.

Brent Jones’ 100+ city “Nothing Else Matter” tour is in full swing as one of the top-grossing tours of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioxkmOW6jlE

ABOUT BRENT JONES: JDI Entertainment artist Brent Jones’ 12-song album “Nothing Else Matters” is available at all digital music outlets, streaming platforms, and music stores throughout the United States and Canada. ❏ ❏ ❏

Changing for the Greater Good

Sherionna Lewis

Do you ever feel like church can be tedious? If so, me too! Traditional churches are more so for older people, and if we want to keep the youth in the pews, there needs to be change. Learning is not “one size fits all,” and church should not be either. Let’s make it interesting and fun. We can experience worship wherever two or more join. Last but not least, youth take over.

What, separating?! Yes!! Before the WORD, the youth could go to another area so the lesson could be taught in a fun and interactive way. In science, I typically find it boring, but experiments make it fun, and I love the hands-on activities, which help me retain information better. Next, church can get repetitive. So, sometimes it would be nice to leave the church BUILDING and go have INNER church in a different setting. Like a field trip! The places would be suggested by all, voted on by the youth, but approved by the pastor. We already go to school Monday-Friday, and for us, church can seem just like school, dragging and tiresome. Listening to someone talk all day long is just like church, and praise worship is like music class or chorus for those who sing in the church choir. So why not

incorporate field trips, or let’s call them “GOD TRIPS” or “SUN TRIPS”?

And then…Youth Take Over! Youth would fill all the roles the adults do. This would showcase our talents, attributes, and God-given gifts. By the way, my church did this, and it was fun. We worked the cameras, sound boards, ushered, and even brought the meditation. I look forward to the next “Youth Take Over Sunday.”

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6 KJV).

These are just a few suggestions to keep the youth, as well as engage new youth in the church. Learning in a more interesting way, church being “on the go” sometimes is not only good for the youth but also for adults too. Lastly, letting youth run the church brings us closer to him and makes God happy.

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19 NIV). ❏ ❏ ❏

My Reflections on the YPD/WMS Quadrennial

Dashja Trawcik, 11th Episcopal District

I have always been very active in all aspects of the church on various levels. This would be my opportunity to finally experience my first YPD/ WMS Quadrennial.

I was looking forward to this experience and giving of my time and talents, but I was also a bit nervous. I can remember my mother, Mrs. Bridgette Trawick, always talking about the experiences, connections, and friendships one makes which will last for a lifetime. She eased my worries by telling me it was like a big family reunion, seeing new and familiar faces from all over the Connectional level and we were all there for one common goal.

Once I had an opportunity to speak with a fellow YPD’er, Rebecca Ann, from the 11th District (South Conference) what was a takeaway from this YPD Quadrennial, she replied, “Being able to see the YPD worked on the Connectional level, and being able to form connections across the various districts.” She also spoke about how she was blessed to connect with the 18th District YPD president, Setsabile. They formed an instant bond, and she showed her nothing but love and kindness from the 11 th!

Something that stood out to me was a few statements that were displayed during the recognition ceremony of area directors. Mrs. Tederia Witherspoon’s statement to leave for YPD said, “Smile more, worry less.

Positivity is infectious, and happiness is a choice. Mrs. Katrinia Aikens’ statement to leave for YPD said, “1. Keep God first!, 2. Strive for excellence!,

3. Always be respectful and obedient!” These ladies were from the Faithful, Fearless, Fantastic Florida Conference.

When switching from YPD to WMS, I was excited to see all the women from across the Connection come together, lift each other, and get excited about the WMS. My 11 th District South Conference Past YPD area director Mrs. Satonya Jackson also shared her ...continued on p21

thoughts and experience for the WMS: “During the Plenary Session V, both Vice President Kamala Harris and the Honorable Val Demings delivered speeches at the convention.

“Their unwavering commitment to their principles and their dedication to fighting for what’s right left me truly inspired.” Second, “The Social Justice panel was exceptional, igniting and motivation within me to go back to my community and make a greater impact.” Third, “The reports from the Connectional WMS officers and the Episcopal districts were consistently a highlight for me. Witnessing the impactful work of missionaries from around the

world is truly enjoyable and inspiring.” Finally, “The joy of connecting with new acquaintances and reuniting with old friends is wonderful. It’s a reminder that despite our small differences, our shared love for the Lord and the AME Church makes us family.”

WMS YAM member Brianna Robinson, from the 11 th District – South Conference indicated how this Quadrennial has allowed her to love the Connectional church as a whole. She is looking forward to seeing a larger emphasis on the YAMS within the WMS, with relevant workshops, etc.

South Conference president Ann McCurdy of the 11 th District also shared her experiences:

“Everyone being on the same accord was phenomenal, expression of the need for Social Action, mission-driven actions through SADA, Fistula, and MOM.” She also commented that, “Being the host afforded me a great opportunity to meet new people. They knew what colors the 11 th were wearing and I was stopped many times to answer questions or to give directions or have a general conversation.” Finally, “This was my 2 nd one and I was humbled to have met AME persons from all over the world! I was especially taken by the delegations from Africa, India, and Canada! I look forward to being present at many more!” ❏ ❏ ❏

New Partnership Resources for Climate Justice: AME + ecoAmerica’s Blessed Tomorrow Program

The African Methodist Episcopal Church and ecoAmerica’s Blessed Tomorrow program have enjoyed a decade of partnership. A recently renewed collaboration will support AME’s visible national climate leadership and further support and activate congregations, clergy, and lay leaders to act and advocate for just and equitable climate solutions. Meighen Speiser of ecoAmerica joined the 20th Quadrennial of AME Women’s Missionary Society on August 2023 in Orlando to share information on the new partnership and early findings from a study conducted on AME climate attitudes and motivations.

The full survey will be available soon; however, early findings show that the AME Church is ready to elevate visible climate leadership and action on climate justice. Findings from a survey fielded in July show much higher concern, prioritization, action, and motivation for action on climate change among AMEs versus a nationally representative sample of Americans.

Ninety-four percent of AMEs are personally concerned about climate change. That is much higher than the national average, which is already high at 72%. But, only 16% of AMEs think other people around them are very concerned about climate when, according to Pew Research, two-thirds of Americans are very concerned. When people think that no one around them is concerned about climate change, it tends to make them quiet about it. And this leads to people doing nothing to solve it. The antidote is visible, vocal, and personally relevant action on climate, where ecoAmerica’s Blessed Tomorrow program’s help and AME action on climate comes in.

Next, AMEs were asked which should be the top priorities for the United States. Among many issues, 61% of AMEs chose climate change as a top priority, a sentiment much higher than the national average of 37%. The data reports that 64% of AME women said climate change should be a top priority, and 52% of AME men.

Sixty-five percent of AMEs are discussing climate change with friends and family, and one-fifth are discussing the topic at church. These numbers are higher than those national, which came in at 45% and 9%, respectively. 19% of AMEs have discussed climate at work with colleagues, 12% have contacted elected officials about the importance of doing something about climate change, and 6% have spoken on the topic at a public gathering. The hope is that these numbers will be higher next year, bolstered by the new tools

and resources of the AME + ecoAmerica Blessed Tomorrow partnership.

The most promising finding is this: Nearly 9 in 10 (89%) AMEs reported that they believe their congregation should be doing more to address climate change, including nearly half of AMEs who said they strongly agree.

The renewed partnership will deepen support for AME climate action and advocacy to bring promising climate attitudes and motivations to bear on climate justice. The partnership also includes a new climate action section on the AME Church website, the Social Action Commission website, and the Christian Education website, Climate Ambassador training, additional research, a series of action sheets that can be used as handouts in church services, and events in local neighborhoods, guides on climate communication and to care for creation in church, webinars, and events to inspire, support and connect customizable communications, and congregational support including a national campaign and access to financial awards.

The AME Climate Ambassador Training is available now, providing knowledge, hands-on experience, and resources to feel comfortable talking about climate change and confident acting on climate justice and solutions. It is a self-paced, 4-hour virtual training offered for free, as are all offerings through the program. The training is informative, inspirational, rooted in faith, and

customized for AMEs. It includes six modules including:

1. Welcome from AME Church and the moral case for action.

2. How climate impacts people and faith and how climate change exacerbates a wide variety of injustices.

3. Climate solutions from national to local to congregational and the home and neighborhood. How faith communities are already leading, and what it looks like to work toward climate justice in an intersectional way and support other’s justice work.

4. How to communicate on climate and faith in a way that is effective and personalized for the speaker and whomever they’re speaking with.

5. Ways to engage in climate action and advocacy .

6. How AMEs can be registered ambassadors with Blessed Tomorrow.

An exciting opportunity for visible national leadership goes public on October 4 th. One Home One Future is a new national campaign to increase visibility on climate action, strengthen the vitality of congregations, and engage local people of faith across generations, particularly supporting youth and clergy, for climate justice. It is a multi-faith campaign, with several denominations of faith, including the AME Church, already part of the

coalition effort that designed and will launch it! It is a moment to stand together across faiths to recognize that we go farther and faster together. It is a moment to recognize that we have seven years to make a real difference in climate action and that the number seven is sacred and perfect. One Home One Future embraces, in spirit, tone, and manner, that it is magnificent to be alive in a time that matters so much. Participating in the campaign means that clergy and congregations will do what they can when they can to act on climate over the next seven years. Signing up gives the congregation a FREE congregational kit, including a banner to hang in front of their church and a getting started toolkit. The One Home One Future website will include a breadth of resources, including sermon starters, Sunday

school and Bible study resources, and more. It will offer several pathways for action, so clergy, congregations, and youth can take action on climate justice, designed to meet people where they are. An informational pre-launch webinar took place on August 9, 2023.

The partnership between the AME Church and ecoAmerica’s Blessed Tomorrow program will continue to support AME leadership. Strategy and planning will be done in collaboration with the church and Dr. Jackie Dupont Walker of the Social Action Commission. Every component of the AME Church is invited to access and engage; however, the Women’s Missionary Society was introduced to it first under the brilliant leadership of Dr. Deborah Taylor King. Christian Education will help to offer the AME Climate

Ambassador training, thanks to Dr. Garland F. Pierce, and it is a pleasure to report ecoAmerica is supporting a new AME Climate Justice coordinator named Robin Porter Smith, who may be reached at rps14069@ msn.com.

We will center the following values in this partnership:

Climate change is a moral and a justice issue. The vulnerable are most at risk. Climate solutions help everyone. The transition must be just. Solutions require investment. We can make a difference. You can lead. ❏

August Is Clergy & Clergy Family Wellness Month

PARTICIPATE IN LIFESTYLE MEDICINE - AFFORDABLE & ACCESSIBLE

www.AMEChealth.org

1. Healthy Food & Beverage Choices – The World Health Organization, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, and American College of Lifestyle Medicine recommend meals full of vegetables, whole grains, fiber, and fruit to help fight and prevent disease (Daniel 1:1-21) and smaller portions of meat. *Enroll in Culinary RX-AME, www.AMEChealth.org.

2. Daily Physical Activity – Daily movement, walking, dancing, stretching, sports, bowling, jump rope, swimming, and exercise promotes health and healing for the body and brain (Psalm 150).

3. Stress Management – Helps to reduce anxiety and depression, and boost

Ecumenical News:

the immune system (Psalm 91 & Philippians 4:4-9).

4. Avoid and/or Reduce Alcohol and Stop Smoking (3 John 2-4).

5. Laughter Is Good Medicine - Have fun with family and friendsparticipate in positive activities that promote joy and peace of mind (Proverbs 17:22).

6. Sleep and Rest – A good night’s sleep is restorative, and time for your entire body to heal, repair, and restore (Psalm 4:8).

7. Faith and Prayer – Nurture your personal relationship with God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, and your family (Psalm 91) ❏ ❏ ❏

Bible Teacher Beth Moore, Splitting With Lifeway, Says, “I Am No Longer a Southern Baptist”

THE FAMED BIBLE STUDY TEACHER SAID SHE NO LONGER FEELS AT HOME IN THE DENOMINATION THAT ONCE SAVED HER LIFE.

Bob Smietana

For nearly three decades, Beth Moore has been the very model of a modern Southern Baptist.

She loves Jesus and the Bible and has dedicated her life to teaching others why they need both. Millions of evangelical Christian women have read her Bible studies and flocked to hear her speak at stadium-style events where Moore delves deeply into biblical passages.

Moore’s outsized influence and role in teaching the Bible have always made some evangelical power brokers uneasy because of their belief that only men should be allowed to preach.

But Moore was above reproach, supporting Southern Baptist teaching that limits the office of pastor to men alone and cheerleading for the missions and evangelistic work that the denomination holds dear.

“She has been a stalwart for the Word of God, never compromising,” former Lifeway Christian Resources president Thom Rainer said in 2015, during a celebration at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville that honored 20 years of partnership between the Southern Baptist publishing house and Moore. “And when all is said and done, the impact of Beth Moore can only be measured in eternity’s grasp.”

Then along came Donald Trump.

Moore’s criticism of the 45 th president’s abusive behavior toward women and her advocacy for sexual abuse victims turned her from a beloved icon to a pariah in the denomination she loved all her life.

“Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power,” Moore once wrote about Trump, riffing on a passage from the New Testament book of Ephesians.

Because of her opposition to Trump

and outspokenness in confronting sexism and nationalism in the evangelical world, Moore has been labeled as “liberal” and “woke” and even as a heretic for daring to give a message during a Sunday morning church service.

Finally, Moore had had enough. She told Religion News Service in an interview Friday (March 5) that she is “no longer a Southern Baptist.”

“I am still a Baptist, but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists,” Moore said in the phone interview.

“I love so many Southern Baptist

people, so many Southern Baptist churches, but I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage that haven’t remained in the past.”

Moore told RNS that she recently ended her longtime publishing partnership with Nashville-based Lifeway Christian. While Lifeway will still distribute her books, it will no longer publish them or administer her live events.  (Full disclosure: The author of this article is a former Lifeway employee.)

Kate Bowler, a historian at Duke Divinity School who has studied evangelical women celebrities, said Moore’s departure is a significant loss for the Southern Baptist Convention.

Moore, she said, is one of the denomination’s few stand-alone women leaders, whose platform was based on her own “charisma, leadership, and incredible work ethic” and not her marriage to a famed pastor. (Moore’s husband is a plumber by trade.) She also appealed to a wide audience outside her denomination.

“Ms. Moore is a deeply trusted voice across the liberal-conservative divide and has always been able to communicate a deep faithfulness to her tradition without having to follow the Southern Baptist’s scramble to make Trump spiritually

respectable,” Bowler said. “The Southern Baptists have lost a powerful champion in a time in which their public witness has already been significantly weakened.” Moore may be one of the most unlikely celebrity Bible teachers in recent memory. In the 1980s, she began sharing devotionals during the aerobics classes she taught at First Baptist Church in Houston. She then began teaching a popular women’s Bible study at the church, which eventually attracted thousands each week.

In the early 1990s, she wrote a Bible study manuscript and sent it to Lifeway, then known as the Baptist Sunday School Board, where it was rejected. However, after a Lifeway staffer saw Moore teach a class in person, the publisher changed its mind.

Moore’s first study, “A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place,” was published in 1995 and was a hit, leading to dozens of additional studies, all backed up by hundreds of hours of research and reflecting Moore’s relentless desire to know more about the Bible.

From 2001 to 2016, Moore’s Living Proof Ministries ran six-figure surpluses, building its assets from about a million dollars in ...continued on p24

2001 to just under $15 million by April 2016, according to reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Her work as a Bible teacher has permeated down to small church Bible study groups and sold-out stadiums with her Living Proof Live events.

For Moore, the Southern Baptist Convention was her family, her tribe, and her heritage. Her Baptist church, where she grew up in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, was a refuge from a troubled home where she experienced sexual abuse.

“My local church, growing up, saved my life,” she told RNS. “So many times, my home was my unsafe place. My church was my safe place.”

As an adult, she taught Sunday school and Bible study, and then, with her Lifeway partnership, her life became deeply intertwined with the denomination. She believed in Jesus. And she also believed in the SBC.

In October 2016, Moore had what she called “the shock of my life” when reading the transcripts of the “Access Hollywood” tapes, where Trump boasted of his sexual exploits with women.

“This wasn’t just immorality,” she said. “This smacked of sexual assault.”

She expected her fellow evangelicals, especially Southern Baptist leaders she trusted, to be outraged, especially given how they had reacted to Bill Clinton’s conduct in the 1990s. Instead, she said, they rallied around Trump.

“The disorientation of this was staggering,” she said. “Just staggering.”

Moore, who described herself as “pro-life from conception to grave,” said she had no illusions about why evangelicals supported Trump, who promised to deliver anti-abortion judges up and down the judicial system.

Still, she could not comprehend how he became a champion of the faith. “He became the banner, the poster child for the great white hope of evangelicalism, the salvation of the church in America,” she said. “Nothing could have prepared me for that.”

When Moore spoke out about Trump, the pushback was fierce. Book sales plummeted, as did ticket sales to her events. Her criticism of Trump was seen as an act of betrayal. From fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2019, Living Proof lost more than $1.8 million.

After allegations of abuse and misconduct began to surface among Southern Baptists in 2016, Moore also became increasingly concerned about her denomination’s tolerance for leaders who treated women with disrespect.

In 2018, she wrote a “letter to my brothers” on her blog, outlining her concerns about the deference she was expected to show male leaders, going as far as wearing flats instead of heels when she was serving alongside a man who was shorter than she was.

She also began to speak out about her own experience of abuse, especially after a February 2019 report from the Houston Chronicle , her hometown newspaper, detailed more than 700 cases of sexual abuse among Southern Baptists over a 20-year period.

Her social media feeds, especially Twitter, where she has nearly a million followers, became filled with righteous anger and dismay over what she saw as a toxic mix of misogyny, nationalism, and partisan politics taking over the evangelical world she loved — along with goodnatured banter with friends and supporters to encourage them.

“I can get myself in so much trouble on Twitter because it’s kind of my jam,” she said. “My thing is to mess around with words and ideas.”

Then, in May 2019, Moore said she did something she now describes as “really dumb.” A friend and fellow writer named Vicki Courtney mentioned on Twitter that she would be preaching in church on Mother’s Day.

“I’m doing Mother’s Day too! Vicki, let’s, please don’t tell anyone this,” Moore replied.

The tweet immediately sparked a national debate among Southern Baptists and other evangelical leaders over whether women should

be allowed to preach in church.

“There’s just something about the order of creation that means that God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice,” Albert Mohler, Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on his podcast.

Georgia Baptist pastor Josh Buice urged the SBC and Lifeway to cancel Moore, labeling her a liberal threat to the denomination.

Controversial California megachurch pastor John MacArthur summed up his thoughts in two words, telling Moore, “Go home.” Moore, who said she would not become pastor of a Southern Baptist church “to save my life,” watched in amazement as her tweet began to dominate the conversation in the denomination, drowning out the concerns about abuse.

“We were in the middle of the biggest sexual abuse scandal that has ever hit our denomination,” she said. “And suddenly, the most important thing to talk about was whether or not a woman could stand at the pulpit and give a message.”

When Moore attended the SBC’s annual meeting in June 2019 and spoke on a panel about abuse, she felt she was no longer welcome.

Things have only gotten worse since then, said Moore. The SBC has been roiled by debates over critical race theory, causing a number of high-profile black pastors to leave the denomination. Politics and Christian nationalism have crowded out the Gospel, she said.

While all this was going on, Moore was working on a new Bible study with her daughter Melissa on the New Testament’s letter to Galatians. As she studied that book, Moore was struck by a passage where the Apostle Paul, the letter’s author, describes a confrontation with Peter, another apostle, and early church leader, saying Peter’s conduct was “not in step with the Gospel.”

That phrase, she said, resonated with her. It described what she and other concerned Southern Baptists were seeing as being wrong in their denomination.

“It was not in step with the Gospel,” she said. “It felt like we had landed on Mars.”

Beth Allison Barr, a history professor and dean at Baylor University, said Moore’s departure would shock Southern Baptist women.

Barr, the author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood, a forthcoming book on gender roles among evangelicals, grew up a Southern Baptist. Her mother was a huge fan of Moore, as were many women in her church.

“If she walks away, she’s going to carry a lot of these women with her,” said Barr.

Anthea Butler, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a forthcoming book on evangelicals and racism, said Moore could become a more conservative version of the late Rachel Held Evans, who rallied progressive Christians tired of evangelicalism but not of Christianity.

Critics of Moore will find it easier to dismiss her as “woke” or “liberal” than to deal with the substance of her critique, said Butler. But Moore’s concerns and the ongoing conflicts in the SBC about racism and sexism aren’t going away, Butler said.

The religion professor believes Moore will be better off leaving the SBC, despite the pain of breaking away.

“I applaud this move and support her because I know how soul-crushing the SBC is for women,” Butler said. “She will be far better off without them, doing the ministry God calls her to do.”

Unwinding her life from the Southern Baptist Convention and Lifeway was difficult. Moore and her husband have begun visiting a new church, one not tied as closely to the SBC but still “Gospel-driven.” She looked at joining another denomination, perhaps becoming a Lutheran or a Presbyterian, but in her heart, she remains Baptist.

She still loves what Southern Baptists believe, she said, and is determined to stay connected with a local church. Moore hopes at some point, the public witness of Southern Baptists will return to those core

...continued on p25

values and away from the nationalism, sexism, and racial divides that seem to define its public witness.

So far, that has not happened.

“At the end of the day, there comes a time when you have to say, this is not who I am,” she said.

Moore had formed long-term friendships with her editing and marketing team at Lifeway, and saying goodbye was painful, though amicable. She’d hoped to spend 2020 on a kind of farewell tour, but most of her events last year were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  (Lifeway does have a cruise featuring Moore

still on its schedule.)

“These are people that I love so dearly, and they are beloved forever,” she said. “I just have not been able to regard many things in my adult ministry life as more of a manifestation of grace than that gift of partnership with Lifeway.”

Becky Loyd, director of Lifeway Women, spoke fondly about Moore.

“Our relationship with Beth is not over. We will continue to love, pray, and support Beth for years to come,” she told RNS in an email. “Lifeway is so thankful to the Lord for allowing us to be a small part of how God has used

Beth over many years to help women engage scripture in deep and meaningful ways and help them grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Lifeway will still carry Moore’s books and promote some of her events.

Moore said those events will likely be smaller, attracting a few hundred people rather than thousands, at least in the beginning. And she is looking forward to beginning anew.

“I am going to serve whoever God puts in front of me,” she said. ❏ ❏ ❏

The Power of Perseverance With a Pan-African Lens

Rev. Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith

1 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ 4 For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” Luke 18:1-5

In this season of what may be called a polycrisis of mounting challenges—food insecurity, climate change, environmental injustice, racial and gender disparities, polarization within governance, divisions of peoples and groups, and questions about freedoms—the spirit of perseverance can be very challenged.

Still, Philippians 3:14 tells us to “press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenlycall of God in Christ Jesus.” The Gospel lesson about the widow helps us to understand what this means from a very practical perspective. Her story

demonstrates powerful perseverance in making her case for vindication from her adversary.

At the same time, her story begs the question of what made the judge give in to her plea. Was it only that “she bothered him” and that he was tired of her “continual coming,” or was it something more? The pretext of the parable tells us that, indeed, the parable is really about prayer.

Recently, the Pan-African Consultation at the 2023 Advocacy Summit prayerfully engaged this biblical reflection along with our related Latino/a convocation—and the entire gathering for the Summit. Together we convened Bread members and advocates to use their collective voice to engage members of Congress and advocate for policies that address hunger and give struggling families in the United States and around the world a chance at a healthy and prosperous life.

The Pan-African Consultation especially lifted the resilience and resolve of PanAfrican farmers nationally and globally. The Consultation created a space for prayer, recalling

The Supreme Court’s Colorblindness

It’s a different colorblindness than the one envisioned in King’s ‘Dream’ speech.

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes

The United States Supreme Court’s decision to reject the race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina comes in a year of 60th anniversaries in American civil rights history. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s letter from the Birmingham jail, the assassination of NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers in Mississippi, the Detroit “Walk to Freedom” march organized by the Rev. C. L. Franklin, and, tragically, the bombing of the 16 th Street Baptist Church, also in Birmingham, all took place in 1963, as did the assassination of the pro-civil rights president John F. Kennedy.

But most indelibly, perhaps, on August 28, 1963, we will remember the speech Dr. King delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, popularly known as his “I Have a

Dream” speech.  King had already spoken of this dream on April 23, 1963, at the Detroit march, which until the March on Washington, was the largest civil rights march in U.S. history. In

the narrative of lament and hope in PanAfrican communities and the lenses of equity, nutrition, and sustainability regarding the importance of the farm bill for PanAfrican communities.

The Consultation included an advocacy visit with the first person of African descent to be the minority leader in the House of Representatives, U.S. Congressman Hakim Jeffries.

The Consultation also joined with the Latino/a convocation for a conversation with Bread board members identified with the two groups. This open space encouraged a better understanding of how Bread is governed and the mutual sharing of strategies for advocacy. They also shared their stories and made prayerful petitions with their congressional leaders and all Advocacy attendees the next day.

I invite you to learn more about the Advocacy Summit and how you can support the farm bill.

addition to featuring King, the Walk to Freedom also heard the voice of Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.  Jackson, who sang and shared the stage at the March on Washington, is reported to have shouted to King during his speech, “Tell them about the dream!”  And King did.

Conservative enemies of civil rights generally and affirmative action particularly have weaponized one image of that dream:  “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged

Angelique Walker-Smith is a senior associate for Pan African and Orthodox Church engagement at Bread for the World.

by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Critics of the race-conscious programs called affirmative action have used this one sentence to argue that King advocated for a “colorblind” society.

It is fascinating to listen to the various commentators defending the decision — from former Vice President Mike Pence to representatives of conservative think tanks — as they insist that affirmative action violates a similar color-blind vision contained in the Constitution. The Court’s decision also cited the “equal protection” clause of the Constitution.

These pleas ignore 76 years of prodigious and violent defense of slavery between the framing of the Constitution in 1789 and the end of the Civil War in 1865. The “color-blind” world of affirmative action’s opponents also ignores the massive, state-by-state imposition of the system we called Jim Crow in the years between the framing of the 14 th  amendment in 1866 (ratified in 1868) and Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which spelled its end.

The states’ rights to require segregation was supported by Plessy v. Ferguson, an 1896 decision defended by stare decisis  for 58 years. During that time, most states, many of them now “red” states, were forced to come up with legal definitions of who was white and who was, in the language of the time, “colored.” The state that Pence once governed, Indiana, had a ban on Black inmigration, the largest population of Ku Klux Klan members, and a ban on interracial marriage.  One can only offer a theory of a color-blind

past if one ignores this tragic history of racial injustice threaded through U.S. history.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the six-justice majority’s position ”a veneer of colorblindness in a society where race has always mattered and continues to matter in fact and in law.” To use King’s dream society to assert the need for color blindness, one must ignore history and current reality.

In her own stirring and prophetic dissent, Justice Katanji Brown Jackson echoed the larger vision of Dr. King when she stated:

“Gulf-sized race-based gaps exist with respect to the health, wealth, and well-being of American citizens. They were created in the distant past but have indisputably passed down to the present day through the generations.  Every moment these gaps persist is a moment in which this great country falls short of actualizing one of its foundational principles—the ‘self-evident’ truth that all of us are created equal.”

It is difficult at this moment to hold onto our faith in King’s larger vision.  The flurry of decisions at the end of this Court term illuminated the stark divisions in the United States over not only race but also gender and sexuality. These decisions come as politicians in many states engage in an assault against what they call critical race theory, “wokeness,” and LGBTQ+ communities. We are observing what journalist Wesley Lowery, in his new book title, calls American Whitelash

Faith has a peculiar role in these culture wars. The Court’s decision to uphold a Colorado web designer’s right to free speech was decided on precedents against forced affirmation, established

to enable Jehovah’s Witnesses to resist pledging allegiance to the flag in public schools.

Meanwhile, on June 27, a court in Michigan ordered a prison to recognize the right of religious freedom of inmates to hold services under the banner of Christian Identity. Identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and as classical antisemites by the AntiDefamation League, Christian Identity believes in segregation and that white people are the appropriate children of Israel in the American promised land.

Faith communities have taken their own decisions to promote divisions, confusing progress with an insult to a divinely ordained order. It is perhaps no accident that the Supreme Court’s decisions coincide with the Southern Baptist Convention’s decision to expel congregations with women in pastoral roles. This denomination, whose history is deeply rooted in the defense of slavery and the defense of segregation, also became prominent among white evangelicals for branding critical race theory and intersectionality as unbiblical. Some evangelicals even used the term heresy.

As 2023 prompts us to remember civil rights triumphs and tragedies, the injustice of assaults on various forms of affirmative action and marginalized communities — and these assaults will continue — must remind us not to give in to despair and to continue the work until in the words of the prophet Amos, we “let justice run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes is an assistant pastor for special projects at the Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur professor emerita of African American Studies and Sociology at Colby College, and a visiting distinguished professor at the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. The views expressed in the commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service or any other publication in which it is printed.

We Hoped for a Miracle for OceanGate’s Titan Crew; We Ignore the Ones Waiting for Us Every Day

The rabbis of the Talmud enjoined us to express boundless gratitude at our waking every day.

Avi Shafran

Novels and films are often predicated on enthralling happy endings derived from serendipitous salvations, unexpected escapes, and miraculous rescues because we are addicted to the rush of relief — even fictional relief.

And when the peril is in the real world, the thirst for a happy ending is all the more intense. The world hoped as one recently as the Titan submersible, on its quest to view the Titanic’s wreck, fell out of contact with its monitors.

During the 80 hours when the fate of the craft and its crew was unknown, all caring people held out hope that the Titan and its occupants, surely enduring unimaginable anxiety and a dwindling supply of oxygen, might still be rescued.

It was a rare above-ground follower of the news who did not imagine himself shut into a cramped metal tube deep beneath the surface of the ocean, feeling the onset of suffocation.

In the end, officials confirmed that, deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean on June 18, the five people who perished, blessedly, did not likely suffer before their demise. When the craft imploded, it was as instantaneous as it was catastrophic. Water pressure at 12,500 feet below the surface — where the Titanic lies — is roughly 400 atmospheres or 6,000 pounds per square inch. The hapless explorers went from life to death in literal milliseconds, unaware of the transition.

Still, what a wonderful miracle would have been celebrated had the happy ending actually happened. How enthralling it would have been

to witness the jubilant welcome of the explorers as they emerged, wonderfully, into the light and fresh air, into the welcoming arms of their families and friends.

Imagine the immeasurable sense of gratitude that would have welled up in the hearts of the rescued and their loved ones, in every feeling heart.

And yet, consider that we undergo a similar experience every day. We wake up in the morning.

It is not only the fact that in sleep we are unconscious, out of control, or that people can, and do, die in their sleep; or even that sleep, like death, is insistent and will only allow itself to be postponed so long.

The rabbis of the Talmud said something more; they considered sleep itself to be a virtual microcosm of death — “one-sixtieth” of it, in their turn of phrase and thought.

...continued on p27

...From The Supreme p25

Today we hardly stop to think about the return of consciousness as anything remarkable. We understand the science of sleep better and what might cause us to die before we wake. Resuming our lives — life itself, in a sense — seems a given.

We’re similarly unimpressed when any truly wondrous thing happens regularly, even when we agree that it’s wondrous. We’re as insensitive to the miraculousness of the night sky as we are to our daily emergence from a night of obliviousness to the world unless someone points it out.

Emerson well captured human nature when he wrote: “If the stars would appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God.”  Jewish tradition instructs that the first words uttered upon awakening in the morning are to be those of the short “Modeh Ani” statement of gratitude. It is one of the first things observant Jewish parents teach their young.

“I gratefully acknowledge You,” the prayer goes, “living and eternal King, for returning my soul to me with compassion. Abundant is Your faithfulness.”

As we pull ourselves from unconsciousness and dark into awareness and light,

CONGRATULATORY ANNOUNCEMENTS

* Purple font connotes Episcopal Family; Red font , General Off icers; and Blue font , Connectional Officers.

The Rev. Dr. Stephanie M. Raglin, President of the 13 th District WIM, Receives Doctor of Ministry Degree

Congratulations to the Rev. Dr. Stephanie M. Raglin who received the Doctor of Ministry degree from Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY on May 20, 2023.  Her dissertation is entitled, “Bridging the Gap to God’s Call: Breaking Through the Barriers of Advancement in the AME Church.”  She also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Asbury Theological Seminary, and is the owner of Serenitee At Its Best Counseling

our gratitude should be boundless. Reciting Modeh Ani with mindfulness when re-entering the world in the morning has the potential to transform a day from mundane to miraculous.

The rabbis of the Talmud also instituted a blessing to be mindfully recited after using the restroom. Sound odd? Well, think for a moment about the myriad unseen but crucial elements of digestion, the body’s separation of nutrients and vitamins, and the assignment of each through the gut and bloodstream to its rightful destination and the proper function of our organs that results.

Mundane, to be sure, but just as surely miraculous.

We may not emerge each morning from the confines of a metal can on the ocean floor. But, revisiting and pondering the hope, even now tragically dashed, that the Titan’s occupants might have been so rescued should give us pause, and boundless gratitude, every time the alarm clock pulls us back to the surface of our lives. ❏ ❏ ❏

JULY 2023

Center,  with a focus on those who have substance use disorders, cooccurring disorders, and other life issues. Dr. Raglin is the current pastor of Embry Chapel AME Church, Elizabethtown, KY and is the president of 13 th District WIM.

Congratulatory messages can be emailed to: sraglin@outlook.com  (The Rev. Dr. Stephanie M. Raglin).

On behalf of Publications Commission chair Bishop David R. Daniels, Jr., president/publisher of the AMEC Publishing House (Sund ay School Union) the Rev. Dr. Roderick D. Belin, and editor of The Christian Recorder Dr. John Thomas III, we celebrate and applaud your achievements.

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NRSV)

To share or receive information about Connectional clergy family bereavements and congratulations, please contact the AME Church Clergy Family Information Center: Mrs. Ora L. Easley, administrator • 5981 Hitching Post Lane • Nashville, TN 37211 • 615.833.6936 (CFIC Office) • amecfic.org • facebook.com/AMECFIC.

NECROLOGY

Listings JULY 2023

* Purple font connotes Episcopal Family; Red font , General Off icers; and Blue font , Connectional Officers.

Brother Reuben Benton, Jr., of Hurtsboro, Alabama, the brother of the Reverend Joe Nathan Benton, pastor of St. Mark AME Church in Opelika, Alabama, in the Northeast Alabama Annual Conference, Ninth Episcopal District

Mr. James Samuel Dye of High Point, North Carolina, the uncle and surrogate father who raised Sister Sonja Dye Boyd, the wife of the Reverend Reuben Boyd, pastor of Third Street Bethel AME Church, Richmond, Virginia, Virginia Conference, Second Episcopal District

Elder Larrie Butler, Sr., the father of the Reverend Maurice L. Butler, pastor of St. Paul AMEC, Dover District of the Delaware Annual Conference of the First Episcopal District

Mrs. Blanche Cade McEachern, the mother of the Reverend Dr. Richard O. McEachern, pastor of Macedonia AMEC, BrooklynWestchester District of the New York Annual Conference of the First Episcopal District

The Reverend Gregory Antonio Thomas, pastor of Bethel AME Church, Chandler, OK, Oklahoma State Annual Conference, and was the spouse of the Reverend Lynnette Thomas, Twelfth Episcopal District

The Reverend Delanor E. Myrick, Sr., a retired itinerant elder/pastor in the AME Church who served faithfully for 45 plus years, Marianna District, Eleventh Episcopal District

Sister Janice Greene, sister of the

Reverend Joe Tripp, Jr., pastor of Antioch AME Church, Marianna District, Marianna, FL, Eleventh Episcopal District

Mrs. Earlene Chambers, age 81, of Phenix City, Alabama, the last aunt of Mrs. Donna McLemore, Lay and WMS leader of the Third Episcopal District

Brother Willie Frank Jackson, the father of the Reverend Gloria A. Hall, presiding elder of the West Birmingham, Ensley, Greensboro District in the Northwest Alabama Conference of the Ninth Episcopal District

Sister Alice M. Turner, mother of the Reverend Kimberly Neal, the pastor of Gordon Chapel AME Church in Chesapeake, VA, Norfolk/Eastern Shore

Gratitude and Vote of Thanks for the 38th Biennial Session

M.A. Makiti, CLO President

I GREET YOU IN THE MATCHLESS NAME OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST…

As we recap the success of the Lay Organizations 38 th Biennial Convention of the Connectional Lay Organization held on June 26-30, 2023, in Chicago, Illinois. On behalf of the Connectional Lay Organization, we were excited to see each of you, and thank almighty God for enabling us to travel globally to attend the 38 th Biennial Session. We are grateful to our Lord and Savior for his traveling mercies and protection over us. We are happy that the Lord made it possible, and for that, we give God honor and glory.

I thank the leadership of the church, bishops, and supervisors for their fervent prayers and support of the Connectional Lay Organization. Your presence was acknowledged, and I extend my hearty thanks. Special thanks to clergy, general officers, Judicial Council Officers, Co nnectional officers, distingui shed guests, and our esteemed speakers at the 38 th Biennial Convention. I thank God for all of you who assembled, as officers, delegates, and observers. Together, with all the members of the Connectional Lay Organization, we thank God for his mercies and the love that he has given us down through the y ears. We are indeed grateful for the grace that has kept us together and count it an honor for the opportunity to serve. We are also gratefu l that God has given members of the Connectional Lay Organization in general the spirit to courageously go out and spread the liberating Gospel of J esus Christ.

Colossians 1:3 – 5 “We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints, because of the hope reserved for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel……”

This scripture reminds us that we should forever be dependent on GOD for everything in our lives. The scripture should also ser ve as a foundation of our Christ-centered approach to all facets of our lives. In this regard, I thank every one of you for the work th at you continue to do toward God’s kingdom building; and to also let you know how much I appreciate your faithful service to the African Methodist Ep iscopal (AME) Church in general, and most importantly to the Lay Organization. I am equally grateful for all who proclaimed his Word – and Go d anointed them to speak to us about the Gospel of salvation. My greatest appreciation goes to our esteemed speakers, who shared so much k nowledge that when we left, we were fully motivated to continue the work of Lay Ministry. Let me also take this opportunity to thank the “Fir st-timers.” May your coming and attendance at the Biennial Convention add growth within your Lay Organizations and add growth in your relations hip with God. The inclusiveness of young adults was phenomenal.

Also, I would like to commend the Episcopal district presidents, for their commitment to making the Convention a success. Speci al thanks go to director DOLA Patricia Wright, and Young Adult representative Jamesha Williams; together your plan of action came to life in every area of training for all present. I commend both of you for your excellent plan and execution of all days during the 38 th Biennial Convention. Director PR Dianne H. Battle, the work of the office of Public Relations and staff comes with high praise and commendations. The “We Speak Newsletters” for each day were highly informative with the information that transpired each day. The press release announcing t he Honorable “HAKEEM JEFFRIES” House of Representatives Democratic leader and representative from New York was history made for the Connecti onal Lay Organization with the live stream from the CLO Facebook page being available for those who were not able to attend. All the work done by each officer made the convention a success as well. I thank each of you for your contributions in every area. In conclusion, the power of the Holy Spirit took control during the Biennial Convention. I am delighted that the worship services, the reports on accounts of stewar dship, as well as the sharing of fellowship brought us closer to God. Again, thank you for your participation in engaging spiritually in the Bien nial Convention. May the spirit of light, peace, unity, and togetherness continue to guide us.

President Jerry Turner and the entire Fourth Episcopal District di splayed excellence in hosting from start to finish. They left no stones unturned. During the 4 th Episcopal District Convention, the honoring ceremony of worthy women icons will be a Her-Story for a lifetime.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS PRESENTED AT THE BIENNIAL:

Ted Harris Young Adult Award

Ylani Hayes, Esq – 8 th District

Outstanding Lay Person Award

Dr. Ethel Bayley Scruggs – 10 th District

Exemplary Episcopal District Award

7 th Episcopal District

Joseph C. McKinney Scholarship

Greta M. Sutton – 9 th District

J. D. Williams Scholarship

Jalecia Claytor – 3 rd District

Jayme Coleman Williams Scholarship

4 th Episcopal District

The 2025 Biennial will be hosted by the 6 th Episcopal District in Atlanta, Georgia. Reporting were shared by Mrs. Dianne Battle, Connectional Director of Public Relations.

The Price of a Legacy: Lessons From the Windows of Hickman Temple

“Man Pays $6,000 for a Pair of Damaged Stained Glass Windows That Are Actually Worth a Fortune.”

This headline, and those similar, went viral across African Methodist Episcopal Church pages on social media as the rare Tiffany Rose windows that once belonged to Hickman Temple AME Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were sold to architectural scavengers looking for a profit. “How could this happen?” “This is so sad!” and other laments populated social media feeds and conversations.

The story, of course, is more complex than meets the eye.

An aging congregation saddled with debt and a historic building in dire need of maintenance, Hickman Temple chose to sell their building to a non-denominational church. Community activists wanted to make the church a historic landmark to preserve the character of their neighborhood and the building’s Gothic architecture. The congregation, however, feared that the designation would block their ability to sell and move into a more affordable place. The Reverend Dr.

Gregory Nelson, then pastor of Hickman Temple, commented in a news interview, “[A few] white people cannot decide the fate of a historic African American congregation that has been in this location for 47 years.” After litigation, the church could block the historic designation and sell the property to Emanuel Christian Center. During the remodeling process, the legendary windows were auctioned. Ironically, the new occupants of 5001 Baltimore Ave., Philadelphia, are pursuing the historical designation.

The saga at Hickman Temple yields several uncomfortable truths for the AME connectionally. We have numerous churches that are historic and architectural gems, a testament to the fortitude and determination of black people to show that we too could construct beautiful temples. Yet, as our communities have shifted and our memberships decreased, we have increasingly become saddled with these buildings built in a different era and increasingly

District – VA Conference, Second Episcopal District

Sister Charity Manyawu, wife and mother and served as the Twentieth Episcopal District Women’s Missionary Society president, also she served as the Northeast Zimbabwe Conference WMS president for eight (8) years, and was a WMS life member Brother Leon E. Anderson, the only sibling of Sister Fredia Hanley-Johnson, the third elected president of Conn-M-SWAWO Plus PK’s, AMEC

Mrs. Fannie Mae Hammett, the mother of the Reverend Virgil Hammett, pastor of St. Andrew (Andrews) AME Church, Kingstree District, Palmetto South Carolina Annual Conference of the Seventh Episcopal District, AMEC

Sister Cassandra ‘Sandy’ Yvette Jones, the sister of the Reverend Damon Blakeley, pastor of Joshua Chapel AME Church in Waxahachie, TX, Northwest Texas Conference and the Reverend Stephanie Heard Anderson, pastor of Sauney Chapel AME Church in Chappell Hill, TX, Southwest

Condolences

To

expensive to maintain. The $200,000 that the Tiffany Rose windows fetched would not have covered the hundreds of thousands of dollars of maintenance on the building.

We can learn from this story that each church knows the value of its property, and most certainly, before the sale of any of our churches, a historic building expert should be retained to ensure that the congregation knows the true value of the edifice and its contents. Also, we must have difficult conversations about what future we want for the properties we have. This process starts with the Annual Conference Board of Trustees. We might be unable to save all our historic treasures, but we can reflect on those candidates for assistance.

Quinn Chapel AME Church in Chicago, Illinois, has been a pioneer in garnering grants and attention, setting forth a model that other churches should follow. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a keen interest in saving black churches and has assisted numerous AME congregations. Initiatives such as the Oikos Institute for Social Impact can also help show churches how to leverage their property and assets to ensure that congregations are making a marked impact in their communities.

Texas Conference, Tenth Episcopal District

The Reverend Henry Jacques Arnoldus, age 54 years, husband and father; an itinerant elder for 21 years in the Fifteenth Episcopal District, AMEC

Sister Roberta Grant, wife of retired Presiding Elder Howard L. Grant, Newark District of the New Jersey Annual Conference of the First Episcopal District

Mrs. Dorothy Mae Grady Dunston, the beloved mother of the Eleventh Episcopal District WMS president, Mrs. Laurastine Dunston Lemon, and the Reverend Charlotte Dunston-Williams, pastor of Mt. Zion AME Church, Zellwood, FL

Sister Florence Thomas Gonzalez, the sister of the Reverend Antonio Thomas, presiding elder of the Camden District in the Southwest Alabama Conference of the Ninth Episcopal District

Mr. Waco Porter, Jr. (retired master gunnery sergeant, USMC), the brother of the Reverend Gloria Cash-Sam, pastor of Wesley Chapel AMEC, Clute, TX in the South Houston District, Texas Conference,

Even when we do everything we do, selling a property might be the best option for the congregation and ministry. We must remember that our forebears built buildings to serve a particular congregation; however, needs change from generation to generation. That is why recording our history and understanding where we come from is so important. The members of Hickman Temple made a difficult choice to preserve the future of their congregation. The Tiffany Rose windows became a headline of a deeper story that we must understand and learn from—for one day, it could be our very own. ❏ ❏ ❏

Tenth Episcopal District

The Reverend Marybelle Stafford, a local elder at St. Paul AMEC, Houston, TX in the South Houston District, Texas Conference, Tenth Episcopal District

Mr. Bobby Lee Mitchell, the brother of Bishop Michael Leon (Supervisor Cordelia) Mitchell, Episcopal leadership team of the Twelfth Episcopal District, AMEC

The Reverend Willie Lee Leslie, a retired itinerant elder of the East Tennessee Conference; pastored several AME churches within the ETC; additionally, he served as a presiding elder within the East Tennessee Conference, Thirteenth Episcopal District

Mrs. Barbara Ann Kosiak Carter, 65, wife of the Reverend James Carter, an itinerant elder at Ralph Avenue AME Church, Louisville, Kentucky, Thirteenth Episcopal District

Mr. James Henry Dickerson, Sr., brother of retired General Officer Dennis C. Dickerson, Sr., Ph.D. and brother-in-law to Mrs. Mary A. E. Dickerson, husband to Mrs. Marva Guilford Dickerson

John Thomas III 21st Editor of The Christian Recorder

to the bereaved are expressed on behalf of Public ations Commission chair Bishop David R. Daniels, Jr., president/publisher of the AMEC Publishing House (Sunday School Union) the Rev. Roderick D. Belin, and editor of The Christian Recorder, Dr. John Thomas III. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4 (NRSV)

share or receive information about Connectional clergy family bereavements and congratulations, please contact the AME Church Clergy Family Information Center. Mrs. Ora L. Easley, administrator • 5981 Hitching Post Lane • Nashville, TN 37211 • 615.833.6936 (CFIC

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