08325
April 25, 2008
Post-slavery stress syndrome
African American Presbyterians have much to overcome, say leaders
LOUISVILLE — The first Black Presbyterian minister took up his pastorate in Philadelphia in 1807. For his first six years in ministry, he saved his money until he had enough to buy his wife and children out of slavery.
For many, the Black experience in the United States has not changed nearly enough, the Rev. Mark Lomax, an Atlanta pastor and dean at Johnson C. Smith Seminary and the Interdenominational Theological Center told the General Assembly’s Vocation Mission Committee today (April 24) as it examined issues around leadership development.
“It took the Presbyterian church until 1861 to speak to the slavery issue,” Lomax said. “So it’s not surprising that the church is silent about the wholesale imprisonment of African American men today.”
For Lomax, the struggle to rise above the bitter legacy of slavery is personal. He told of getting into an elevator in New York, only to have a white women shriek and cower in a corner. “I shrieked and jumped back myself, but I don’t know if she got the message,” he said.
“It’s painful and demeaning to be treated with fear, all based on the color of skin,” Lomax said, calling the psychological and spiritual damage still visited on Black Americans “post-slavery stress syndrome.”
And the church is not guiltless. He told of visiting a presbytery where he had been invited to preach. “For the first 90 minutes I was there, no one spoke to me, there was virtually no eye contact,” he said. “So I took a seat in the back of the church until it was time to preach.
“After I finished preaching, everyone’s attitude changed,” Lomax continued. “But it has an impact on your psyche and your heart.”
Such damage cannot be ignored when training Black seminarians, Lomax said, and so ITC/Johnson C. Smith includes a host of programs and courses into its curriculum that are absent in all or mostly white theological institutions. “We have to help students understand and heal.”
The school offers courses in community organizing, theology and public policy, on-site urban ministry, and Black women in contemporary communities — “the alarming rate of single-women-headed households is a direct result of ‘three strikes you’re out’ sentencing laws that have put so many of our men in prison,” Lomax said, “and now the problem is compounded by the fact that between 1973 and 1991 the number of Black women in prison increased by 273 percent.”
“Students have to understand that when you talk about crime and violence, you are not talking about Black and Hispanic communities,” Lomax said. “You have to talk about America’s shared history, which is filled with violence of all kinds.”
The problems of public education “are not about drop-out rates and low standardized test scores,” he continued, “but about public policies that ship the best teachers and resources to white suburbs.” Such policies create “a psychology of nihilism and despair throughout the country,” Lomax said. “Our young people have lost hope.”
Creating Black Presbyterian leadership in such a context is daunting, said Vanessa Hawkins of the GAC’s Black Congregational Enhancement (BCE) Office. “If you want diversity in leadership,” she said, “you have to be intentional about developing it.”
BCE’s top priorities, she said, are responding to concerns raised by Black Presbyterian congregations, encouraging and supporting networks of Black congregations and leaders, strengthening collaboration among Black Presbyterian congregations and facilitating leadership development opportunities for Black congregational leaders.
The racial divide in America is borne out by PC(USA) statistics: 72 percent of the 72,000 Black Presbyterians in the PC(USA) are in all-Black congregations. More than half of all Black Presbyterian congregations are in just 10 presbyteries and more than half of the 173 presbyteries have no Black congregations. And only 51 Black Presbyterian congregations (11 percent) are west of the Mississippi River.
Lomax urged that more money be committed to Black congregational development in the PC(USA). “The language in our budgets and work plans communicate that funding has been shifted from racial-ethnic to multicultural and immigrant ministries,” he asserted. “Is that really what we want to communicate to African Americans and others?
“There’s a tremendous opportunity for the church in African American communities precisely because things are so bad there,” Lomax insisted. “Our budgets and work plans need to be explicit about our commitment to Black churches, so we’re not communicating that Black Presbyterians are less valuable to the church.”
Financial support for Black Presbyterian pastors is crucial, as well, he said. In Atlanta the Reformed Church in America and the Baptists are making significant progress in growing new Black churches, Lomax said, because of their support of pastors.
“We can’t expect them to sacrifice of $90,000 worth of seminary debt to serve a church that cannot afford a living wage,” he said. “We’re losing a lot of great people because of that dynamic.”
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