The Forty-Day Journey of Promise

Day Thirty-Two: Dynamic African American Soul Care

Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.

Empathizing with the Flock

Rev. Richard Allen

The Rev. Richard Allen’s experience with slavery and prejudice, along with his longing to minister in ways that met the specific needs of his African American brethren, equipped him in unique ways to empathize with his people. In an open letter of spiritual consolation entitled To the People of Colour, Allen models dynamic soul care.

“Feeling an engagement of mind for your welfare, I address you with an affectionate sympathy, having been a slave, and as desirous of freedom as any of you; yet the bands of bondage were so strong that no way appeared for my release; yet at times a hope arose in my heart that a way would open for it; and when my mind was mercifully visited with the feeling of the love of God, that he would make way for my enlargement; and then these hopes increased, and a confidence arose as a patient waiting was necessary, I was sometimes favored with it, at other times I was very impatient. Then the prospect of liberty almost vanquished away, and I was in darkness and perplexity.”

Lessons Learned

Consider Allen’s holistic empathy: emotional (“feeling”), rational (“an engagement of mind”), and relational (“an affectionate sympathy”). Notice also how Allen connects his story to their story by telling of his level one external suffering (“having been a slave”) and his level two internal suffering (“I was very impatient;” “I was in darkness and perplexity”). As a shrewd soul physician, Allen understands how to connect with people through story sharing.

He explains exactly why he shares his story.

“I mention the experience to you, that your hearts may not sink at the discouraging prospects you may have, and that you may put your trust in God who sees your condition, and as a merciful father pitieth his children, so doth God pity them that love him . . .”

Here Allen skillfully intertwines sustaining consolation (“that your hearts may not sink at the discouraging prospects”) and healing consolidation (“put your trust in God who sees” and “pitieth”). His focus is on turning their focus back to God.

Allen next shifts to guiding by providing a current heroic narrative and a future freedom narrative.

“You will have the favor and love of God dwelling in your hearts which you will value more than any thing else, which will be a consolation in the worst condition you can be in and no master can deprive you of it; and as life is short and uncertain, and the chief end of our having a being in this world is to be prepared for a better (the current heroic narrative), I wish you to think of this more than any thing else; then you will have a view of that freedom which the sons of God enjoy; and if the troubles of your condition end with your lives, you will be admitted to the freedom which God hath prepared for those of all colors that love him. Here the power of the most cruel master ends, and all sorrow and tears are wiped away” (the future freedom narrative).

Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)

1. Richard Allen modeled spiritual consolation through story sharing, holistic empathy, and providing a current heroic narrative as well as a future freedom narrative. Which of these affectionate sympathy skills would you like to add to your repertoire of spiritual friendship?

2. How will you go about this?

The Forty-Day Journey of Promise

Day Sixteen: Leaping to My Feet

Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.

Jarena Lee and the Wonders of Forgiveness

African American conversion accounts splendidly assimilate the “two sides” of reconciliation. First, God’s Spirit hooks in the heart—he loads the conscience with guilt, bringing the sinner to the point of saying, “It’s horrible to sin.”

But the Spirit never leaves us there. He causes sinners to leap to their feet—he lightens the conscience with grace, bringing the sinner to the place of saying, “It’s wonderful to be forgiven!”

Jarena Lee’s conversion narrative displays the potency of these twin Gospel themes. Born on February 11, 1783, in Cape May, New Jersey, Lee grew up with parents ignorant of the Gospel. At age 24, she was converted under the preaching ministry of a Presbyterian missionary and of Reverend Richard Allen.

The year is 1804, and Lee undergoes deep conviction as she hears the Presbyterian minister preach from the Psalms. “Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin, born unholy and unclean. Sprung from man, whose guilty fall corrupts the race, and taints us all.”

In response, she writes:

“This description of my condition struck me to the heart, and made me feel in some measure, the weight of my sins, and sinful nature. But not knowing how to run immediately to the Lord for help, I was driven of Satan, in the course of a few days, and tempted to destroy myself.”

In fact, Lee senses Satan suggesting to her that she drown herself in a brook near her home, in which there was a deep hole where the waters whirled about among the rocks. Resisting this temptation, her mind reminds tortured. Continuing to search for peace, she finds only doubt.

Grace for Our Disgrace

Experienced soul physicians recognize her symptoms as the result of preaching guilt without grace. Guilt minus grace always equals Satan’s condemning narrative of despair.

The Apostle Paul prescribes his antidote. “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20). Competent ambassadors of reconciliation know that grace is God’s prescription for our disgrace.

Richard Allen: An Expert Soul Physician

Reverend Richard Allen was such a man. Attending an afternoon service in which Allen was preaching, Lee perceives in the center of her heart the sin of malice, and she receives the forgiveness of God.

“That instant, it appeared to me as if a garment, which had entirely enveloped my whole person, even to my fingers’ end, split at the crown of my head, and was stripped away from me, passing like a shadow from my sight—when the glory of God seemed to cover me instead.”

Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, God covers Lee’s shameful nakedness with garments purchased in and cleansed by blood. Immediately, she celebrates the wonders of forgiving grace.

“That moment, though hundreds were present, I did leap to my feet and declare that God, for Christ’s sake, had pardoned the sins of my soul. Great was the ecstasy of my mind, for I felt that not only the sin of malice, but all other sins were swept away together.”

Lee and a multitude of other African Americans depicted conversion using the biblical metaphor of rebirth. The result of being born again by forgiving grace was twofold: a new nurture—having a new relationship to God as beloved sons and daughters, and a new nature—having a new identity in Christ as cleansed saints.

Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)

1. African American soul physicians understood salvation to be more than a quick praying of a “canned” prayer. What do you think of their view of salvation?

2. African American soul physicians taught that grace super abounds over guilt. In our Gospel presentations today, do we tend to highlight only guilt, only grace, or a “splendid assimilation” of both?

Martin Luther King and the Founding Fathers of the Black Church

Note: You’re reading Part One of a three-part blog mini-series honoring Martin Luther King Day. These three posts, in turn, serve to introduce our upcoming Forty-Day Journey of Promise. Click here to read how that blog series will teach us life lessons from the legacy of the heroes of Black Church history.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was, of course, one of the main leaders of the American Civil Rights movement. What is lesser known today is King’s training and ministry as a Baptist pastor. Even fewer people know the long history of African American ministers promoting civil rights.

That history begins with the Reverends Richard Allen (1760-1831) and Absalom Jones (1746-1818). Allen and Jones were foremost founding fathers of the African American independent churches and of the American Civil Rights movement.

Allen’s Ministry

Allen traveled extensively, preaching in Delaware and Pennsylvania. In February, 1786, he preached at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Thinking that he would be there one or two weeks, ministry needs led Allen to a settled place of service in Philadelphia.

Concerned for the wellbeing of African Americans in this parish, he established prayer meetings. “I raised a society in 1786 of forty-two members. I saw the necessity of erecting a place of worship for the coloured people.”

It was at this time that the Rev. Jones united with Rev. Allen. Their little band met great opposition, including “very degrading and insulting language to us, to try and prevent us from going on.”

Notwithstanding, they established prayer meetings and meetings of exhortation, with many people becoming Christians. Their growing congregation, still without a building, often attended services at St. George’s Church. When the black worshippers became more numerous, the white leaders “moved us from the seats we usually sat on, and placed us around the wall.”

Jones’ Convictions

It was at this juncture that one of the most noteworthy events in the American Civil Rights movement occurred. Taking seats that they thought were appropriate, prayer began. Allen describes the scene.

“We had not long been upon our knees before I heard considerable scuffling and low talking. I raised my head up and saw one of the trustees, H. M., having hold of the Rev. Absalom Jones, pulling him up off of his knees, and saying, ‘You must get up—you must not kneel here.’ Mr. Jones replied, ‘Wait until prayer is over.’ Mr. H. M. said ‘No, you must get up now, or I will call for aid and I will force you away.’ Mr. Jones said, ‘Wait until prayer is over, and I will get up and trouble you no more.’”

By the time the second usher arrived, prayer was over, and, according to Allen, “We all went out of the church in a body, and they were no more plagued with us in the church. This raised a great excitement and inquiry among the citizens, in so much that I believe they were ashamed of their conduct.”

The Birth of the Independent Black Church

As a result, Allen and Jones birthed the first independent Black Church in the North when they hired a store room and held worship by themselves. Facing excommunication from the “mother church,” they remained united and strong.

Allen stirringly recounts the situation. “Here we were pursued with threats of being disowned, and read publicly out of meeting if we did continue to worship in the place we had hired; but we believed the Lord would be our friend. . . . Here was the beginning and rise of the first African church in America.”

Some twenty years later, when increasing numbers of African Americans could not worship without harassment in the Methodist Church, Allen and others called a conference which established the first African denomination in America. It was resolved, “That the people of Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc., should become one body, under the name of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.”

Civil Rights, Then and Now

While Americans rightfully pause to remember the historic work of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is equally important to reflect on precursors to his work. The Revs. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones paved the way for heroic African American ministers to pursue civil rights, equality, and religious freedom for all Americans.

Join the Conversation (Post Comments for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)

1. Out of the evil of racism, God brought the good of the establishment of the first independent Black church in America. How is God creating good out of evil in your life circumstances?

2. Where does the church in American still need to overcome racial and cultural barriers to experience true oneness in Christ?

Note: This series is based upon material from the book Beyond the Suffering. If you’d like to learn more about Beyond the Suffering, click here.