Bishop James Jones: Learning from the Slaves

Posted by Kendall Harmon

One of the miracles to emerge from the history of slavery was evident on the banks of the River during that service of Holy Communion. There, hundreds of years later, drinking from the same cup of blood-red-wine were both white and black. The fact that the slaves came to share the Christian faith of those who'd enslaved them is extraordinary. That borrowed faith sustained them as they laboured in the cotton fields singing their spirituals, longing for freedom.

Somehow the slaves were able to see through the hypocrisy of the white religion that oppressed them, to see that the God of the whites didn't thirst for their tears, but shed his own at their misery. Somehow they came to find in Jesus a kindred spirit, one who himself had been 'sold down the river'.

Standing on the banks of the James River I began to see an unnoticed fact of history. I see it here in Liverpool whenever black and white gather together to worship God. It was the Christian faith of black slaves that rescued and redeemed the Christian religion.

Read it all.


Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History

5 Comments
Posted September 2, 2007 at 6:01 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Larry Morse wrote:

“It was the Christian faith of black slaves that rescued and redeemed the Christian religion.”
  I wish there were something permitted that is stronger than saying that the above is balderdash.
Where DO people like this get such sycophantic posturing?  LM

September 2, 11:20 am | [comment link]
2. Matthew25 wrote:

This article is “right on.”  The Episcopal Church in the USA is so dysfunctional, conflicted, and constipated that official membership continues to be reported as 2 plus million.  We all know that on any given Sunday the pews are always less than half full.  My guess is that committed Episcopalians (attend more than 3 times a year) are probably around 1 million.  Very puny.  I will let you conclude why this church is rapidly becoming a historic al legacy.

However, the real Anglican communion is centered in Africa and Latin America.  Forty million plus souls.  The average Anglican is probably a 45 year old black woman devoted to Bible study and Rite I.  Spend some time in Africa or the Caribbean, and you will see what I mean.  This is NOT balderdash; it is reality.

Rev. Jones is spot on.

Peace and Grace

September 2, 8:44 pm | [comment link]
3. Larry Morse wrote:

Beg pardon, but the essay said “black slaves” and it is this that I was referring to a piffle. It is still balderdash. When we had slaves, the churches were never in trouble, and the slaves saved nothing in this regard; TEC has cut its own throat and if Christianity is “saved” in America, it will be a group effort, so to speak, with as many Hispanics and Chinese - even liberals - as any other group.

  The pastor is talking about America, not the rest of the Anglican world. And his posture is ethnic bootlicking; he is attempting to make himself black in order to gain face and status.  LM

September 3, 8:00 am | [comment link]
4. azusa wrote:

James Jones is a good guy, but his views and grasp of history here are a bit simplistic. One could easily point out the role of slavery in Islam, which didn’t stop the descendantrs of those slaves becoming Muslims. Incorporation into a religion is a complex social process, and members of a racial or social class don’t all think alike in any case.

September 3, 9:34 am | [comment link]
5. evan miller wrote:

Amen, Larry Morse.  Balderdash it is.

September 4, 9:17 am | [comment link]
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