Episcopal Press and News
Black Episcopalians Gather in Chicago for Remembrance and Revival
Episcopal News Service. July 28, 1993 [93135]
David Skidmore, Communications Officer for the diocese of Chicago.
From the opening Eucharist's sermon hailing the black church as "the harbinger and midwife" for justice in the world, to the awards banquet, the 25th anniversary meeting of the Union of Black Episcopalians (UBE) celebrated the hard-won gains of 200 years of African-American experience in the Episcopal Church.
It's a history stretching from Absolom Jones, the church's first black priest, and Alexander Crummell, co-founder of a UBE forerunner, to Barbara Harris as the first female to become a bishop in the Episcopal Church, and the appointment of the Very Rev. Nathan Baxter, first black dean of Washington National Cathedral.
Yet underlying these promising accounts were troubling assessments of continuing indifference and resistance in the wider church and society to issues of racism. Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning's observation in his opening sermon that the black church's challenge to the wider church's conscience "has not been universally welcomed" was amplified in the addresses of keynote speaker Lerone Bennett, executive editor of Chicagobased Ebony magazine, and the Hon. Louis Farrakhan, national representative of the Nation of Islam.
While excoriating the white establishment for centuries of slavery, disenfranchisement, and cultural hegemony, both Bennett and Farrakhan took to task the African-American community for its apathy in the face of social justice, pursuit of material success at the expense of community cohesion, and devaluation of its own heritage. Black professionals, said Bennett, who have functioned for too long "as freelance entrepreneurs," must come together for help in the economic revitalization of black neighborhoods.
Farrakhan, while customarily denouncing white injustices, had some harsh words for African Americans, berating them for losing sight of their Christian mission -- bringing souls to Christ -- and of their own identity. "You go out of your way to show how much you love white folk but you won't go around the corer to show love for your black brothers and sisters," he told a capacity crowd in a student union building at the University of Illinois, Chicago campus, site of the UBE conference.
The remonstrance, was, however, just one note in a far-ranging symphony of remembrance, reverence, relation and revival, played out in a triumphant opening Eucharist featuring the dedication of the African-American hymnal Lift Every Voice and Sing II; in the next evening's thanksgiving Eucharist for departed UBE members; in the voices of 100 black teens at the youth Eucharist; in lively seminars on black spirituality, black scriptural presence, AIDS awareness, evangelism and stewardship; and in the crosstalk following Bennett's and Farrakhan's addresses and that of the Rev. Robert Hood, director of African-American studies at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, who spoke on the evolution of bias against blacks in the church and the growth of black consciousness.
The opening Eucharist reflected the cultural montage of the AfricanAmerican experience in the church. A block-long festive procession of more than two dozen black priests and deacons and nine of the church's black bishops filed into St. James Cathedral behind a crucifix bearing an ebony black figure of Christ and three eight-foot tall banners in the African-American black, red and green palette.
Using the Old Testament reading from the opening lines of Isaiah 42 as his starting point, Browning commended black Episcopalians for their role in bringing justice to the world. Like the long-suffering Isaiah, he said "the black church, faithfully, with perseverance and through suffering, is the harbinger and midwife of that very justice."
Browning attributed much of this resolve to the quality of worship among black Episcopalians that draws its strength, he said, not from the ritual but from a seared and tempered faith.
"Worship in the black tradition is the crucible where suffering and joy meet. Out of that experience the message goes forth to the whole church: despite setbacks, despite drawbacks, despite barriers, we will persevere in steadfastness. We will be faithful," said Browning.
Black congregations are committed to bringing about justice, "however differently defined that may be, however ill-defined that task might seem, however difficult," Browning added. They have made that their business, "in the knowledge that none of us is free until we all are free," he added in a declaration that brought a burst of applause and calls of "Say it again."
The UBE, said Browning, shares that crusade in the face of lingering suspicion and discrimination. Criticism of the UBE as separatist is off the mark, he said, since it wasn't black Episcopalians who turned their backs and closed the door. "The estrangement has been called forth and enforced by a majority culture who saw our oneness as contrary to the natural order."
Despite these roadblocks, the black church has not surrendered its charge, but "has held the church's feet to the fire, and challenged the church to be the church," exclaimed Browning to enthusiastic applause.
While the rooms may be plentiful in God's house, they remain limited here on earth for black people, according to Ebony's executive editor Lerone Bennett, keynote speaker on the opening day of the conference. He told the 900 delegates and guests that the black community is experiencing "the worst crisis since slavery times," with unemployment among inner city blacks running between 60 and 70 percent -- higher than when the UBE was founded -- and drugs decimating black family structure. Add to that the worst onslaught of racism since the 1920s and it's no surprise that the black community is finding its place in American society precarious.
With most of the interracial alliances and caucuses of the 1960s languishing or abandoned, blacks must turn to themselves for answers, he said, and relearn the founding principle of the UBE "that the God of history helps black clergy and laity who help themselves" and that the practical lesson of politics and the street is that "only power can talk to power."
The road to survival runs through the spirituality and traditions that sustained their African-American ancestors, said Bennett. Spirituality and economic development go hand in hand in the black community. "It is no accident that the first black businesses came out of the black church," he said.
But if that is to happen then black professionals must stop functioning as "freelance entrepreneurs," he said, and start to coordinate their skills, resources and influence to rebuild the black community and break down the barriers of institutional racism "for nobody gave black people anything in America and no one will give black Americans anything, not even the time of day, unless we demand it."
The goal now is not integration nor separation, he said but liberation. Blacks must redefine their relationship to American society; they must be able to claim the respect and pride enjoyed by other ethnic groups that have climbed to the highest rungs: Jews, Italians and the Irish. "It is past time to demand the right to be black and to be proud of being black," Bennett insisted.
The first step is a wake-up call. "Now is the time for all Americans to understand that the dream cannot be safe for anyone if it is not safe for everyone. This is a crisis about the future of the United States of America," Bennett concluded.
UBE got a powerful wake-up call from the Hon. Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, who had strong words for a church he described as degenerating and dying.
Warmly welcomed by the Rev. Richard Tolliver, UBE president, and the Rev. Darryl James, conference dean, and an enthusiastic crowd of close to a thousand, Farrakhan made his pitch for a revived church in words alternating between a combative and conciliatory tone.
"I know you didn't invite me for me to sugarcoat the truth," Farrakhan told a rapt audience. With the first of many salvos of applause ringing in his ears, Farrakhan urged his listeners not to fear "for what words may come from my lips, because I did not come to take one soul away from Jesus Christ." His aim, Farrakhan declared, was "to bond us closer to the master that we may not be nominal Christians -- Christians in name -- that Jesus condemns."
Farrakhan, who was raised Episcopalian at St. Cyprian's parish in Boston, said he regards himself as both Christian and Muslim. He left the church as a teenager, Farrakhan said, after becoming disillusioned about the church's lethargy in fighting racism. "I was looking for somebody to talk to the needs of black people. Since I did not hear it coming from my church, I heard it coming out of the mouths of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X."
In Islam Farrakhan found the purpose for his existence, to bring people to God, the same purpose, he said, that is at the core of Christian belief. Though admitting hostility toward Christians early on, Farrakhan said he has since matured, conforming to Paul's teaching about setting aside childish views. For a people of God to be divided by doctrine is misguided, he said, "and I refuse to be party to that kind of division."
Toward the end of his talk he underscored this conciliatory posture by arguing his militant black nationalist stands have been misinterpreted. "I am not a hater. I'm not an anti-Semite. I'm not against white people because they are white. I'm for black people because I am black."
"My effort has been to transform black life and to make it moral and good." He has been labeled an extremist, he said, "because I condemn evil in high places."
Farrakhan's address, weighted with polemics, focused on the need for a revived church. As thunderstorms mounted outside, he fired rhetorical bolts at a church "sick with division and strife, all rooted in envy and false pride and greed." Preachers have become more concerned with material well-being than the spread of God's word, and have veered from speaking the truth for fear of offending the power brokers. Consequently, the church's faith has "degenerated to rituals that are empty and meaningless and cannot bind the people to Jesus Christ and his mission."
The church is also reeling from a heritage of racism, Farrakhan contended, which has poisoned it "to the point where as black people we're ashamed of being who we are." It was whites who created the church, said Farrakhan, and their purpose was not to push Jesus but imperialism. "These people were wicked. They were not righteous people. They made Jesus white as a cover for their slave trade, when in fact he had "hair like lamb's wool, and feet like burnished brass."
Addressing white Christians, Farrakhan asked, "Why couldn't you leave Jesus like he was? Because that was not your purpose. Your purpose was to use religion to enslave the darker people of the world by the use of religion. So you hid the truth."
In a question-and-answer session following his two-hour address, Farrakhan explained his view of Christ -- "God manifest in the flesh to show man who God is"-and how blacks must learn to pool their resources "and stop begging at the foot of the white man" if they are to rise out of their economic abyss.
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