Author praises history of African-American church
(http://www.post-trib.com/news/neighbors/1411040,suffering.article)

February 5, 2009

By Janna Odenthal
Post-Tribune correspondent

CROWN POINT — Members of Bethel Church in Crown Point were encouraged to expand their cultural horizons recently when thinking about the Christian faith.

Author Robert Kellemen came to the church on Broadway to speak about the history of the African-American church and about his book “Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African-American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction.”

Kellemen was raised in Gary, where he developed a passion for multiculturalism. He spoke about his realization that the public knows little of the social contributions of the African-American church. He said his desire is to “unbury” its legacy.

Herb Devine of Crown Point attended with his wife, Rhonda.

“I think it’s really important to know the historical context of different cultures,” Devine said. “I think that’s what it takes to break down barriers in Christ.”

The presentation included vignettes on African-Americans in church history. Kellemen spoke of slavery, giving examples of several slaves who gained freedom and went on to make significant contributions to Christianity.

“My desire tonight is that everyone will be able to fight sin better because of their example,” said Kellemen. “They didn’t have a GPS (global positioning system) to follow the North Star, only a physical North Star. Jesus Christ became symbolic as their spiritual north star.”

Kellemen told of African-American spiritual leaders throughout history.

– Lemuel Haynes fought for theological standards.

– Daniel Alexander Payne, an African-American educator and author during the Jim Crow era, motivated Rosa Parks by standing up for justice.

– Zilpha Elaw modeled spiritual friendship by starting a school for black girls.

– Author Maria Stewart reminded black women that they were formed in God’s image.

Kellemen paused for a moment of silence. He asked those attending to reflect upon which character quality they would like to incorporate into their lives. He encouraged them to be thankful for the examples set before them.

Cherry Hoffner of Cedar Lake said the program was inspiring.

“I was encouraged by the examples –their faith and tenacity,” Hoffner said.

Steve Fuentes of Merrillville said he would like to build bridges in the Christian community.

“Churches are multiracial, but not multicultural,”?he said. “Having a better understanding of their history and church is going to help me reach across racial lines.”

At a glance

For more information about Robert Kellemen and RPM Ministries, call 662-8138 or visit the Web site www.rpmministries.org.

*Note: For The Journey: Day Fourteen, see my earlier post today.

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Thirteen: It’s Wonderful to Be Forgiven

Welcome to day thirteen of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Thirteen: It’s Wonderful to Be Forgiven[1]

*Continued from Day Twelve . . .

Positioned in front of the firing squad, Chaplain White asks Private Mapps one last time, “Do you feel that Jesus will be with you?”

“Yes,” he replies.

“Do you put all your trust in him?”

“I do,” is his answer.

“Do you believe that you will be saved?”

“I do; for though they may destroy my body, they cannot hurt my soul.”

White then prays this benediction. “Eternal God, the Master of all the living and Judge of all the dead, we commit this our dying comrade into thy hands from whence he came. Now, O my Lord and my God, for thy Son’s sake, receive his soul unto thyself in glory. Forgive, him—forgive, O thou Blessed Jesus, for thou didst die for all mankind, and bid them to come unto thee, and partake of everlasting life. Save him, Lord—save him, for none can save but thee, and thee alone. Amen. Good-by, my brother, good-by.”

The order is now given: “Ready! Aim! Fire!” All earthly life extinguished. Eternal life commences.

White brilliantly, lovingly, and scripturally enlightened Mapps to see that it’s horrible to sin, but wonderful to be forgiven. Skillfully he wove together ancient Scripture and pressing need.

Turning of Heart

Private Mapps’ response to Chaplain White’s death-bed ministry offers one example of how God reconciled an African American to Himself. Through interviews, slave narratives, autobiographies, and letters, we are fortunate to have a multitude of first-hand accounts of personal conversion experiences.

These vivid descriptions help us to understand the literal turning of heart (metanoia—repentance, change of mind), transformation of identity, and reorientation of personhood that occurred at the salvation of African Americans. We have much to learn from them about how to witness to any oppressed, marginalized people, how to explain the need for a Savior, how to encourage repentance, how to offer the grace of forgiveness, and how to explain the changes that occur in one’s nurture and nature at salvation.

Learning Together From Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Like Chaplain White, how can you weave together ancient Scripture and pressing modern needs?

2. What change of mind and heart took place in your life at your point of salvation?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Eleven: Biblical Sufferology

*Note: If you are enjoying the journey, then invite others, and purchase copies of Beyond the Suffering. Take your church small group or your youth or adult Sunday School class on the full version of The Journey with the built-in discussion guide in Beyond the Suffering. Order now at: www.rpmministries.org for 40% off at just $10.00.

Welcome to day eleven of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Eleven: Biblical Sufferology (Practical Theology of Suffering)[1]

On a daily basis, enslaved African American suffered vicious victimization. Yet they fought their way to personal and interpersonal victory. How? They found victory in Jesus over daily abuse through their daily, even moment-by-moment practice of Christianity.

Charlotte Brooks explains it this way to Octavia Albert.

“I tell you, child, religion is good anywhere—at the plow-handle, at the hoe-handle, anywhere. If you are filled with the love of my Jesus you are happy.”

For Brooks, her religion was no “pie-in-the-sky, sweet-by-and-by” pabulum. Listen to the next sentence out of her mouth.

“Why, the best times I ever had was when I first got religion, and when old master would put me in that old jail-house on his plantation all day Sunday.” Jailed physically on the Sabbath, spiritually every day was a free Sabbath, a day of jubilee for Brooks.

Trials Make Us God-Dependent

What mindset enabled such inner freedom? Brooks and others understood that trials make us God-dependent. Speaking to her interviewer Albert, and to us, she says,

“You see, my child, God will take care of his people. He will hear us when we cry. True, we can’t get any thing to eat sometimes, but trials make us pray more.”
In fact, the lack of trials can lead to a slackening of faith. “I sometimes think my people don’t pray like they used to in slavery. You know when any child of God gets trouble that’s the time to try their faith. Since freedom it seems my people don’t trust the Lord as they used to. ‘Sin is growing bold, and religion is growing cold.’”

Trials Make Us Other-Sensitive

While Brooks provides an African American slave sufferology explaining the source of personal victory, James Smith offers an African American slave sufferology explaining the source of interpersonal victory. He understands that lack of toil leaves us insensitive, while trials make us other-sensitive.

“The life that is buoyant with hope, living perpetually in God’s sunshine, realizing every thing that is sweet in existence, has little in it that touches the chord of sympathy . . . Yet there are those in toils and trials that reap an experience that, when made known, unfold a lesson of admonition and comfort to others. . . . Yet, flowing out of this, we see the Guiding Hand preparing us for better things, moulding us for a better life.”

God’s guiding hand leads us down the trail of trials where we not only see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we become a light unto the world. As Smith summarizes:

“No mystery was ever deeper than that which shrouds the path by which men were led into bondage, and no system was ever more cruel and intolerant than that which inflicted stripes and burdens upon men, without cause, and deprived them of liberty and the right to life. Yet when we look back upon God’s dealings with his early people, and see how they wrought in bondage and suffered in their wanderings form it, it reveals His power of bringing good out of evil, light out of darkness, and becomes a school of wisdom to the world.”

We follow the North Star guidance of the enslaved African Americans’ response to their daily affliction by adhering to their slave sufferology. We walk their trail of trials trusting Jesus day by day, clinging to the truth that trials make us God-dependent and other-sensitive.

Learning Together From Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Nothing happens to us that must define us. What loss or trauma could you redefine to reclaim your God-given victory and authority over evil?

2. As you walk the trail of trials in your life and as you journey with others, how can you apply two core themes in African American sufferology: Trials make us God-dependent? Trials make us other-sensitive?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Five: Beauty from Ashes—The Intention of Jehovah

Welcome to day five of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Five: Beauty from Ashes—The Intention of Jehovah[1]

Captured and ruptured Africans needed Divine consolation teaching that it’s possible to hope because God is good. So they reminded each other that God weaves good for them even from human evil against them.

Such faith, as Quobna Cugoano believed, requires spiritual eyes like those of Joseph (Genesis 50:20).

“I may say with Joseph, as he did with respect to the evil intention of his brethren, when they sold him into Egypt, that whatever evil intentions and bad motives those insidious robbers had in carrying me away from my native country and friends, I trust, was what the Lord intended for my good.”

Cugoano makes the sweeping affirmation that, even in the face of human evil, God is friendly and benevolent, able and willing to turn into good ends whatever may occur. It is the belief that God squeezes from evil itself a literal blessing.

We can journey with our spiritual friends to the God of Joseph and Cugoano who Master-crafts every event of their lives to reveal his glory and bring them good. We can interact with them about the God who fashions for them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair (Isaiah 61:3).

Looking at Life with God’s Light

Olaudah Equiano taught his readers a similar lesson when he ended his narrative with these closing words of counsel. “I early accustomed my self to look at the hand of God in the minutest occurrence, and to learn from it a lesson of morality and religion; and in this light every circumstance I have related was to me of importance. After all, what makes any event important, unless by it’s observation we become better and wiser, and learn ‘to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God!’”

Like Equiano, we practice spiritual friendship by reminding one another that God uses unjust suffering to make us more just, unloving treatment to make us more loving, and arrogant abusers to make us more humble. Like Equiano, we exercise spiritual discipline by orienting ourselves to detect God’s hand in every circumstance—no matter how seemingly minute.

Following the North Star

We follow the North Star guidance of the enslaved Africans’ responses to capture and rupture by reminding ourselves and our spiritual friends that we are never alone. Most of us would consider ourselves condemned prisoners in solitary confinement if we were stowed in the suffocating hold of a slave ship with little air, no portals, and no access to the outside world. Our African forebears teach us that there are always three open portals providing a way of internal release from captivity.

Portal One: God

Portal one is God—the God of all portals, the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulations. Kidnapped from their homes and hijacked across the world, enslaved Africans encountered a wilderness experience that raised ultimate questions and brought them to a breaking point. On the brink between sanity and insanity, many encountered God—their good God who hears, sees, and cares. Theirs was a dual journey—away from their human home to their heavenly Home. As they journeyed, the chains still clanked, yet their hearts still hummed, or at least moaned.

Portal Two: God’s People

Portal two is people—when the God of all comfort comforts us, he does so in order that we can comfort one another with the comfort that we receive from him. Individually and corporately they tapped into the Holy Spirit at every turn. In bound community, they shared with one another the Spirit of God within them, their hope of glory. The collective gathering of the power of his presence in their inner being provided life-sustaining strength in the midst of death-bidding despair. The all-surpassing power of God (2 Corinthians 4:7-9) shared among these captured souls transformed them into “Jesus with skin on.”

Portal Three: Self—Trusting God

Portal three is self—not the self of self-sufficiency, but the self created in the image of God and infused with the Spirit of God. Ramming into the breakers of life, these enslaved men and women could break or conclude that there is no need to break. At their breaking point, those slaves who entrusted themselves to God discovered a bottomless resourcefulness that enabled them to transform physical bondage into spiritual freedom. Through God, they absorbed the ache of life without abandoning the ship of hope. Even while stowed like animals below deck, they saw the shining North Star of God with upturned eyes of faith looking out spiritual portals.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. How could the truth that “God is good even when life is bad” impact your life and ministry today?

2. Ponder an area of external suffering—something that you have endured that feels suffocating, like a prison sentence, like something out of a horror movie. Which of the three portals (God, others, self) could you open in order to stop letting your circumstances define you, in order to find the resiliency not to break when you hit the breakers of life?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at http://www.rpmministries.org/.

I invite you to join me on a forty-day intercultural journey of promise. I will be blogging during the forty days from Martin Luther King Day on January 19, 2009, to the end of Black History Month on February 28, 2009. Our focus will be: The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

I know, technically, that is forty-one days. February 28 will be a day of reflection on the previous forty-day journey. Each day we will highlight a stirring narrative from Black Church history. Then we will ponder application of this legacy to all of our lives today—regardless of our ethnicity, nationality, race, or cultural background. We will also include discussion questions so that you can individually, in your family, corporately in your church ponder the implications for your life and ministry.

Go to: http://rpmministries.blogspot.com/

If you have a blog or a church web site, feel free to post a link and encourage those you know to Join the Journey.