Note: From Swing Low, Volume 1 (IVP, 2024). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Citations have been omitted.
It was April 24, 1823, and after months of braving the open sea, land was in sight. A passenger on the vessel, a woman with the complexion of cocoa, later recalled, “The sight chilled our very hearts. The ladies retired to the cabin and burst into tears; and some of the gentlemen turned pale: my own soul sickened within me, and every nerve trembled.” She recollected thinking to herself during the voyage,
I must look forward to that Sabbath which will never end – there to see, face to face, what we now see dimly through a glass; and to meet you, with my other friends, whom I have left behind. It is a source of consolation to me to be able to think that you, with many others in my native land, pray for me. Were it not for that, I should almost despair.
This is not a record of the dreaded Middle Passage but of missionary Betsey Stockton’s transit from America’s Eastern Seaboard to the Sandwich Islands (later named Hawaii). Stockton was born into slavery in 1798 and was soon without mother or father to look after her. She converted to Christianity in 1816 and was manumitted (freed) the following year. Stockton became a member at First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, and soon after she concluded that it was the sacred duty of every Christian “to offer themselves in humble obedience to God’s call to carry out his plan of salvation through Jesus Christ for the world.”[Robert J. Stevens, Profiles of African-American Missionaries, 65]
Her conviction kindled a desire to depart for Africa as a missionary. Shortly thereafter, Stockton learned that Princeton Theological Seminary student Charles S. Stewart was planning to depart for the Sandwich Islands, and she joined her efforts with those of his family. Stockton was commissoned by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and became the second single American woman sent overseas.
While on the island, Stockton established a school for the Maka’ainana, the common people of Maui. After receiving some opposition from the local chiefs, in 1824 Stockton established a school and was its first teacher. She taught algebra, English, Latin and history. Her missionary strategy was upheld by the conviction that reading and writing were essential to ongoing discipleship. By 1826, the school Stockton founded had educated eight thousand Hawaiian students with the intention of imparting the gospel of Jesus Christ. In 1825, Stockton returned to Princeton due to the poor health of Stewart’s wife, Harriet.
Like the tale of Betsey Stockton, the African American Christian story recounts a determined people driven by faith to pursue spiritual and social uplift for themselves and others to God’s glory. The narrative contained in these pages tells the story of countless heroes and heroines of the faith who were often overlooked while they walked the earth, who have been forgotten in history, but whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
A Story within a Story
The Christian story is a global story composed of a “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) from “all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues” (Revelation 7:9). Contributions from Black Catholics and other organized faiths notwithstanding, this volume is limited to professed Black Christians within Protestant denominations and communions in the United States, or missionaries who were sent from America to other nations. This volume’s focus on African American Christianity means that the expansive witness of the broader African diasporic Christian community is not within the book’s immediate scope despite their meaningful contributions to the faith. The tale of Black faith is interwoven into the tapestry of God’s people but is often absent in the pages of church history. This Christian narrative steps into that void by featuring the stories of Hosea Easton, Zilpha Elaw, Elias Camp Morris, Harriett A. Cole Baker, Gardner C. Taylor, Mary McCleod Bethune and others as they displayed how the gospel of Jesus Christ redeems sinners and restores them to walk faithfully within their cultural and historical context. This narrative highlights the beauty of the African American contribution to the universal Christian story, of which Jesus Christ is at the center.
The Theological Anchors of Black Christianity
The story of Black Christianity in the United States has been told in a variety of ways. A common approach features denominational development. C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya’s The Black Church in the African American Experience is a classic example of this method. Another approach focuses on African origins, and this is characterized by Albert J. Raboteau’s Slave Religion. The most common method employed by trained theologians reflects the priorities of Black liberationists who evaluate African American Christianity with the rubric of radicalism.
Theologian James H. Cone argues that “the black church was born in protest” and that a radical posture is the hallmark that legitimizes a Black church. [James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 94] Historian Gayraud S. Wilmor’s 1973 publication of Black Religion and Black Radicalism cemented Cone’s insistence on political protest as the means of belonging to the African American religious tradition. This approach incorporates figures based on their opposition to slavery, resistance against Jim Crow segregation and fight against social injustice, and often overlooks Conversion stories and the vibrant spiritual witness of Black Christianity.
The two-volume work Swing Low resists assessing the African American Christian tradition with a method that materialized in the middle of the twentieth century. Instead, this volume employs a theological criterion that emerged from the nascent days of African American faith. The rubric deployed in these volumes is defined as theological Anchors that conceptualize the doctrinal themes that emerge from within the story of Black Christianity in America. Swing Low volume 1 chronicles how the Anchors emerged and matured and developed in their sophistication and emphasis through history while maintaining independent viability until a calculated methodological shift led by Black liberation theologians.
By offering a historically detailed account with a keen eye toward its theological foundations, the Anchors maintain a familiar cord that traces its roots to the orthodox theological commitments of both African and non-African church fathers. While Black Christians did not set out to establish an organized doctrinal framework, these thought patterns consistently emerge from the literature. The following theological Anchors summarize the doctrinal commitments that African Americans have historically affirmed.
Anchor 1: Big God. A Big God is at the center of African American Christianity – the one who is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). The God who is able is affirmed without dispute throughout the tradition. In the Black community, African American theologians conclude that the ultimate question is not “Does God exist?” but rather “What is his character?”…God’s sovereignty affirmed that neither slave masters nor bigots were ultimate – God is….
Anchor 2: Jesus. Christ is essential to the Christian faith, and his person and work are fundamental to the African American theological tradition. A driving motif of the incarnation is identification. For example, Jesus identified with God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and humanity at his baptism and once again with humankind during his wilderness temptations. For Black Christians, Jesus’ identification with life’s joys and sorrows forged meaningful solidarity with the marginalized. Referring to the Savior as Jesus (his given name), rather than Christ (his office), emphasized Jesus’ nearness to the plight of the least….
Anchor 3: Conversion and Walking in the Spirit. Conversion and Walking in the Spirit coalesce as an event and a process. Like two sides of the same coin, these distinct realities relate to each other. The Conversion (or salvation) event exchanges sin and condemnation for new life in Christ through his atoning death and resurrection. The moment of Conversion initiates the sanctification process, wherein believers are conformed to Christ’s likeness by overcoming the power of sin in their lives by the Spirit’s power. While the lion’s share of the tradition affirms that sanctification is a lifelong process, those in the holiness tradition embrace Christian perfectionism, which affirms that believers are fully sanctified in a second blessing of the Spirit (distinct from salvation)….
Anchor 4: The Good Book. The Bible is the Good Book. African Americans are a Bible-centric people with a healthy dependence on God’s revealed Word. Despite high illiteracy rates, Bible knowledge increased dramatically as enslaved Blacks rehearsed biblical stories and sang spirituals in the fields and in their living quarters. Telling and retelling biblical accounts of Israel was far more than entertainment; it was an act of resistance. African Americans avoided making the Good Book an object of distanced analysis by thrusting themselves into the biblical narrative. Slaves identified with the Hebrew people and declared themselves participants in the biblical drama. Their identification with the story further cemented them within the people of God and reassured their inherent dignity….
Anchor 5: Deliverance. God is a liberator. This biblical theme directly applies the Christian faith to the African American experience. Sometimes also called freedom or liberation, Deliverance is established in significant biblical events that serve as an interpretative key for unlocking Scripture’s message and discerning the unchanging character of God. Most prominently, the exodus reminded Israel of God’s faithfulness and demonstrated that slavery was against his will and that divine power was available to deliver his people. Similarly, Jubilee was a celebration of canceling debts and freeing slaves that was intended to establish God’s liberating character in the social consciousness of his people. These acts of Deliverance culminated in Christ’s death and resurrection, which secured victory over every manifestation of sin for his people….
Inherent Integration of the Anchors
African American theological reflection is a celebratory task. Passionate doctrinal expression is a means of extolling the God who can save his people from their sins and overcome life’s trials. As the Anchors are assessed throughout the narrative, it is essential to note that thought, action and worship are intrinsic to Christian faithfulness within historic Black faith. Theological reflection on the Anchors does not conclude with abstract concepts but with a living witness to biblical teaching. Said differently, for Blacks, Christianity is a practiced faith, so the Anchors have not achieved their purpose until they guide activity in both public and private life. In addition to serving as an instructional means of introducing the theological themes of African American Christianity, this story of Black faith incorporates a wide variety of self-confessed Christians, and these Anchors are a means of demonstrating whether their doctrinal commitments lie within or extend beyond the orthodox faith that African Americans have historically affirmed.
Note: Taken from Swing Low: Volume 1 by Walter R. Strickland II. Copyright (c) 2024 by Walter Robert Strickland II. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com
Walter Strickland II, associate professor of systematic and contextual theology, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
