Our choosing of a name had come to the point where we were divided into three groups. One group wanted to name the room “Founders Hall.” We had a plaque at the back of the sanctuary memorializing the two wealthy men who gave the land and the money to build the church in 1866; forty thousand dollars was a lot of money then. A second group wanted to name it the “Community Room.” And a third group, of which I was a part, did not understand why it was so important what we named it or even why it had to have a name at all; I was in this third group. People were civil and respectful as they spoke, but there was great emotional energy in the room. I sensed something deeper than a name was at stake here.
For most of the church's first century, the congregation had been all white. As civil rights legislation began to pass and African Americans began to have access to jobs for which they were qualified but had been denied, they started moving into northwest Philadelphia. As the composition of the community changed, so did the church. The first person of color joined in 1964. When I arrived in the early 90’s, the church was overwhelmingly African American.
As the discussion went on in that business meeting, it dawned on me what was at stake. The church was struggling with its past. When the church was founded and those generous men gave that land and money, the majority of the people in the room that day would not have been welcome in the pews.
As a young inexperienced pastor still learning my church and ministry, I did not that day share my insight. I was unsure whether the people in the room could endure intact such a candid conversation that would feel like an indictment of our storied founders. Looking back now with more history among them, I suspect we would have been alright. It would have been a difficult but good conversation for us to have. History is like that; it can be a difficult but cleansing conversation.
To have judged those
founders by our practices and sensibilities would have been unfair and would
have bred a sense of self satisfaction in us that would have stymied our
further spiritual growth. We are all a
product of our times. Our mental and
moral horizons are limited, for most of us, by the breadth of vision of our
contemporaries. It is humbling to think
about how those who follow us in a century will evaluate our choices and norms.
Recently, Southern Seminary confessed the school’s role in
propagating and seeking to preserve slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and white
supremacy. Communities are struggling
with how they should memorialize and interpret the War Between the States, a
war in defense of human slavery. Some
have catalogued how housing discrimination shaped the present day character of
the city of Chicago (Isabel Wilkerson, The
Warmth of Other Sons—The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration) and other
northern cities. Others have catalogued
the role of slavery and racism in building the industrial base of the entire
country (Edward E. Baptist, The Half has
Never Been Told—Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism). These are difficult but healthy
conversations. Sometimes to enter well
into the future we need to own our past.
The Hebrews are cautioned before entering into the promise land:
Know, then, that
the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your
righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do
not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to
wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to
this place (Deut. 9:6-7).
We are stronger communities when we speak honestly and
clearly and, yes with humility, about how we have arrived where we are, both
the commendable and the regrettable legs of our journey. To have difficult conversations about our shared
past is an act of confidence in the strength of our present communities, conversations
that can open to us a better future.
Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister of the American Baptist
Churches of New York State
