Rev. Dr. Gertie L. Hurley and Love AME Church Recognized for Health

Education in the Community

The Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC) recently honored the Rev. Dr. Gertie L. Hurley, the Health Ministry director of Love African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Largo, Maryland, by awarding her the “Dr. Walter M. Booker, Sr. Health Promotion Award” for her work educating the African American community in the Washington, District of Columbia metropolitan area through Taking Effective Action, Inc. (TEA), the non-profit organization she founded.

Over the past year, Dr. Hurley and the Rev. Krishnan Natesan, senior pastor of Love AME Church, led the efforts of community partners in administering an African American COVID-19 Virtual Education Series. The education project reached over 300 residents by training community health leaders through virtual education on COVID-19, prevention guidelines, vaccination information, and other resources. Love

Church led the way with partners in helping TEA distribute over 40,000 facemasks and COVID-19 information cards to the community.

Dr. Hurley and her team designed an education program emphasizing healthy eating and cardiovascular health. The program included disseminating information cards with resources from ABC and other authoritative sources that allowed residents to access health information online during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the program provided training and toolkits to community health leaders to enable them to continue providing health education to the community. The program will also support the leaders and community partners in sharing health information.

“Dr. Hurley is indeed a phenomenal woman of God. Her passion for improving the health of those locally, regionally, nationally, and globally is amazing,” said Pastor Natesan. “She fully carries the torch of educating our churches and communities everywhere about knowing their health status and what impacts it. Her health symposiums and consistent participation in the NBC-TV4 health fairs and other health venues have catapulted her work across the globe. She is a walking and talking demonstration of living a healthy lifestyle. Love AME Church is immensely proud of her and the work she has done to receive this prestigious award.”

The Rev. Dr. Gregory V. Eason, Sr., Senior Pastor of Flipper Temple AME Church in Atlanta, Georgia, said he was honored to be invited to attend the Association of Black Cardiologists Annual Gala. “When I heard of the award being given to the Rev. Dr. Gertie Hurley, I was proud to be a part of the AME Church,” said Eason. “Dr. Hurley is carrying out the spirit and mission of the Free African Society out of which the AME Church evolved. Her work with TEA, in partnership with Love AME Church, is worthy of honor,” Rev. Eason continued.

The Association of Black Cardiologists presented Dr. Hurley with her award during its 13th Annual Awards Gala and Fundraiser in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Buckhead on October 15, 2022. Each year, ABC honors the work of outstanding health leaders with their health promotion award. This year, the gala’s theme was “Health Equity in Motion 22,” which describes Dr. Hurley’s work that she often carries out with the help of local AME churches and other denominations.

...continued on p17 be forgotten: Don't get caught up in the language. Just because folk say “God” don’t mean they are up to godly things—and yes, I meant “don’t mean.” Ebonics is not the language of empire.

So, the angels, like Ebonics, stay reminding us of something we should ask ourselves whenever we receive news: who is delivering the message? Is the messenger an agent of empire/ violence or an agent of God/ goodwill? Who receives the message first? Are they the prestigious/elites or someone routinely overlooked, even nameless? Where does the message lead us first? An imperial palace or a manger?

Advent tells us; Advent reminds us; Advent forces us to remember that the message from heaven often comes first to the bottom—the below—the marginalized and the overlooked. Joseph and Mary were probably at a family or a close friend’s house, but there was no “couch” to sleep on. They were peasants, after all—there was no middle class in ancient times. While peasants had small living quarters, many also had a space where the animals stayed. This space was normally in or near the same house. And so Mary had to give birth to Jesus in the part of the house where the animals stayed, and so, inevitably, Jesus did not have a “crib” to sleep in. Absent a crib, his parents had to put him in a feeding trough for the animals. They laid him in the manger. And if we believe that salvation is found in a feeding trough next to animals… if we believe that the manger is where God is, then we can be saved. Advent happens out in the cut–up in a feeding trough.

We must truly be holy; that is, we must truly be radically different than the patterns of this world and transformed to proclaim that salvation is found in a feeding trough. But Holiness 101 = God’s ways aren’t our ways. To be holy is to resist the temptation to look for God immediately among the “greatest” and famous; to be holy is to first look for God among the

Christians must realize that there are people who do not come to church to do good. Instead, some attend church deliberately (unknowingly or ignorantly), engaging in behavior that deconstructs, delegitimizes, and destroys the church.

How can you recognize this in church congregations?

In Kenneth Haugk’s book, Antagonists in the Church, he names a very dangerous situation facing the church by unveiling the presence of persons he identifies as “antagonists.” He characterizes them as those who cause congregational disunity, chaos, and conflict, referencing their tendency to engage in destructive behavior, including frontal and clandestine attacks against the pastor.

They fool us because they are often charismatic and personable, good actors who seem to be deeply spiritual mavericks with the potential to help others and improve the church. But, they create factions, influencing members to join them in causing drama and conflict, and opposition to the authority of the pastor.

I am warning that there are people whose behavior results in loosing evil in the church.

That there are “antagonists” in the church is a sobering thought. But not just Haugk and I are familiar with these phenomena. In his 2009 book, Clergy Killers , pastor and pastoral counselor G. Lloyd Redinger cites an even more sinister phenomenon as he introduces us to people he calls “Clergy Killers” (CKs). Describing outrageous, true situations of pastors so taunted and attacked that they died of stress-related illnesses or left the church altogether, Redinger argues that “…contemporary society is especially compatible for CKs.” He reasons that there is a) a general distrust of authority figures of any kind; b) a lack of biblical literacy of congregants, c) a sense of entitlement of parishioners to “criticize and punish pastors” and leave if the pastor is not “pleasing them,” and d) a lack of pastoral training in conflict resolution, or how to support themselves in survival situations. While Haugk stresses our need to be able to differentiate between healthy criticism and conflict vs. antagonism and activism, he also notes that “confrontation is not mutually exclusive to forgiveness” and interprets the admonition of Titus 3:10-11 as

“least” and overlooked. To be holy (to be different) is to look for God in a manger. This is the “spirit-check” of holiness.

Many followers of Jesus often believe that God and the universe commission those who are on top. They are caught up in the same spirit of domination that called Caesar the “son of God.” We routinely confuse domination with authority and authority with goodness. This confusion leads us to invest in “worldly” power and prestige, and in so doing, we lose our connection to a holy and loving God. That’s why we currently have some “Christians” in an unholy alliance with authoritarians and plunderers. Misguidedly, they mistake holiness with being better than others rather than holiness, revealing that God don’t do it the way the world does it. To be clear, I am neither valorizing the feeding trough nor am I claiming that every palace official is evil. But there are some things that the feeding trough constantly reveals. 1) The feeding trough reveals that imperial/ oppressive decrees uproot pregnant women and make them migrate to places where there is no room. 2) The feeding trough reveals that, on too many occasions, our social and worldly arrangements reflect the spirit of domination.

3) The feeding trough shows us that Jesus saves even before he does one act of ministry. His very arrival in a manger as a baby saves us—it saves us from thinking that the power of domination will ultimately save us.

4) The feeding trough ultimately reveals that God’s love and presence can be found anywhere, especially amongst the dispossessed and oppressed. O, how marvelous is our God! This is good news. ❏ ❏ ❏ teaching that people who refuse to repent, are walking in sin; those who are followers of Christ must have no more to do with them. Unpacking how best to respond to this teaching merits a Bible study.

I am raising this issue because I have personally interacted with psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, antagonists, and “clergy killers” over the years, and it took me some time to realize it! Each easily fits into Christian settings, accurately quoting scripture and appearing sensitive and gifted. They look like leaders, have a great sense of humor, and draw us to them. However, we soon note that they are often critical. We laugh with them at their stories that, yet, upon reflection, suggest that they take pride in being dishonest. We discount our suspicions, not wanting to be judgmental. We shake our heads, dismissing our realization that they are often at the center of church friction. Finally, we notice that they do not play by the same rules we do, thrive on conflict, and work at forming allies against someone or even the pastor. Money is missing when they are around, and people are silenced, fearful, and overruled. They show up at meetings where they do not belong— criticizing and causing conflict.

Although many of us have seen this type of situation in a church, we have likely never taken the time to analyze the situation. It is hard to believe that a church member or leader’s motives could be so selfish, deliberately dishonest, and destructive.

Unfortunately, our Christian theological bent assists in the success of “antagonists” and “clergy killers” in the church. It is past time for theological reflection and rethinking. Does being long-suffering require that we tolerate consistently disruptive and destructive behavior? How do we protect the unity in the body of Christ without becoming permissive, judgmental, and unforgiving?

Please take the time to read the books cited in this series. Then, discuss this phenomenon and the closing questions so that we will not continue to welcome wolves in sheep’s clothing into the church. ❏ ❏ ❏