Gandhi to King: Satyagraha to the Civil Rights Movement

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are among the most venerated figures of the twentieth century. Though worlds apart–South Africa, India and the United States–their fight for social justice and human rights are integral to how the world  has come to view the fight against oppression, discrimination and injustice. Through an unshakable faith in  a universal truth, a transcendental love—ahimsa for Gandhi, agape for King—the two leaders have transformed the lives  of millions. With nothing more than conviction and unbreakable courage, they fearlessly battled injustice with nothing but nonviolent resistance–satyagraha and civil disobedience campaigns. As a result they’ve restored hope, dignity and self-respect to millions of oppressed peoples around the world.

Public Transportation, Indignity, and Seeds of Protest

South Africa,  1893

Mahatma Gandhi
Source: Wikimedia Commons

In  April 1893 Mohandas Gandhi, a young lawyer from the northwestern  Indian state of Gujarat, sailed to South Africa to work for an Indian firm [1]. His first  foray into the law profession in his native country had been a dismal failure, and he jumped at the chance to practice his profession abroad for a year.  About a week after arriving in the coastal city of Durban, in what was then the colony of Natal, he boarded a train  for the 333-mile trip northwest  to Pretoria, in the  republic of the Transvaal.  Though holding a first-class ticket he was unceremoniously told to leave the compartment for an inferior one [2]. He refused and was kicked off the train. Indian contacts arranged a berth for him on a train the following day. To complete his journey  he was required to transfer to a stagecoach. There, he was denied  seating in the compartment, and was forced to  sit outside next to the driver. The coachman took his seat with the other passengers in the compartment.   Later, the coachman decided to smoke and climbed out, sat next to the driver, and instructed Gandhi to sit inside, on the floor.  Gandhi refused, and a commotion ensued.

After reaching his destination, Gandhi discussed his hardships with his hosts, and found that the indignities he suffered were not unusual. He  convened a meeting among prominent Indians in Pretoria (Transvaal).  In his first public address he discussed the condition of Indians in that region.  He also suggested the formation of an association  that  would  be responsible for representing the hardships encountered by the Indian population to the authorities. The seeds of protest in South Africa and later, India,  were planted.

Montgomery, AL, 1955

Rosa Parks
Source: Wikimedia Commons

On the evening of Thursday, December 1st, 1955,  Mrs. Rosa Parks was riding in the colored section at the back of a municipal bus, on her way home from her job as a seamstress at a  local department store. The White section, up-front, was full. A White man entered. Black riders were compelled to give up their seats to a White passenger when the White section was full [3]. Three Black passengers near Mrs. Parks  stood so the White man could sit. Mrs. Parks, a volunteer for the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused.  The police were called. She was taken off the bus and arrested. In response, Black residents of the city agreed to boycott the Montgomery bus lines the following Monday. A group  was formed, and elected to extend the boycott until  a list of conditions, designed to mitigate the humiliation and indignities suffered by Black commuters, were met. They chose a twenty-six-year-old  pastor recently arrived from Atlanta, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., to  lead the protest. The seeds of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the United States were planted.

Continue reading Gandhi to King: Satyagraha to the Civil Rights Movement

Reflections on C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce

C.S. Lewis, Author and Scholar, 1898-1963

In the preface to The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis presents his allegory  as a kind of counterpoint to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.  Blake, a celebrated artist and poet, supported the idea of ‘spirituality,’ and was a fierce critic of organized religion. According to the British Library, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,  Blake develops the idea that the sensual world can lead to the spiritual, and that the repression of desire destroys the spirit. He says, ‘Man has no Body distinct from his Soul … Energy is the only life, and is from the Body.’ [1]

Lewis declines to  launch a full frontal attack on Blake’s ideas–he isn’t even convinced that he knew what Blake meant [2] — but he does take issue with the idea that there may be a direct path between carnal desire and the spiritual, and by extension, between Heaven and Hell–that there is a way by which both alternatives can somehow be reconciled without a rejection of past sinful behavior, where ‘mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain.’ [3] Lewis categorically rejects these ideas. He argues we live in a world  where all roads do not eventually lead to a common destination, a centre if you will, where some degree of good coexists with a tinge of evil; instead, all roads diverge, leading to distinct destinations of  good or evil—where good and evil continually diverge, grow farther and farther apart: ‘Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good’ [4], that is, where Good is definitively and categorically  divorced from Evil—where Heaven is divorced from Hell. 

This does not mean that those who chose the wrong roads inevitably perish, but to be put back on the right path requires finding one’s errors and correcting them. ‘Evil can be undone, but it cannot develop into good.’ [5]

At the centre of The Great Divorce is the idea of  a second chance, that those in Hell (or Purgatory, depending on their life choices)  are given an opportunity to reject  the wrong path, and return to the correct one.  Lewis accomplishes this through the idea of the Refrigerium,  an idea propagated in a sermon by the English clergyman Jeremy Taylor. The Refrigerium describes a brief respite from Hell, where  the departed are allowed a day in  Heaven. Lewis takes this idea  and introduces us to a group of the Departed, who take a bus ride to the outskirts of  Heaven and are met by former  family and colleagues, who offer them the opportunity to reject their ways and accept the opportunity to join them in Heaven.

Through these encounters, we learn about  former  relationships: relationships with family and colleagues, and with God. Lewis uses these events to examine several themes, including, self-interest, selfishness, pride, lust, love—love for self disguised as love for others—reliance on self vs. reliance on God.  Underlying many of these encounters however is Milton’s theme in Paradise Lost: ‘It is better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.’ [6]

Continue reading Reflections on C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce

Clapton: Slowhand at the crossroads

 Eric Clapton: Slowhand at the Crossroads.
‘In order to keep what I had, I had to give it away. In order to stay sober, I had to help others get sober. This is the main principle that governs my life today.’ — Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton performs on stage at Royal Albert Hall on May 17, 2011
(Photo by Marc Broussely/Redferns)
Getty Images Standard editorial license

On September 20th and 21st 2019, Eric Clapton held his fifth Crossroads Guitar Festival.  The event was held to raise funds for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua.  An extraordinary array of guitar talent, seldom seen in one location at one time, appeared before packed audiences at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.   The audiences were treated to two days of extraordinary musicianship and musical collaboration.  Many of the performers seemed just as starstruck as members of the audience.

Crossroads Guitar Festival, September 20-21, 2019
Credit: Weldon Turner, September 20, 2019

While the Festival was an extraordinary event from a musical perspective, what made the event even more special was the cause—funding for the treatment of substance and alcohol addiction.

Mr. Clapton’s story, as chronicled in Clapton: The Autobiography and the feature length documentary Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, is marked by rejection, emotional pain, despair, and tragedy that fueled a decades-long addiction to drugs and alcohol. It is also a story of ultimate victory and triumph. The Festival, and the rehabilitation centre it supports, symbolizes a journey where gut-wrenching tragedy was transformed into a positive and inspiring force for good.

‘On My Own’

On March 30, 1945, a sixteen-year old girl, Patricia (Pat) Clapton, gave birth to a baby boy in the wooded county of Surrey, just south of London, England. The baby’s father was not present.  The 24-year old married Canadian soldier had returned to his native country while Pat was pregnant.

Continue reading Clapton: Slowhand at the crossroads

Richard Allen and the AME Church, Part 2: Legacy

Early Bishops of the A.M.E Church

When Richard Allen established the African Methodist Episcopal Church–the first religious denomination established by African Americans in the United States–he set in motion an organization that would play a critical role in driving the spiritual, social and educational advancement for millions of  followers—both in the United States and around the world.

Continue reading Richard Allen and the AME Church, Part 2: Legacy

Richard Allen and the AME Church, Part 1: Richard Allen

Bishop Richard Allen (1760-1831)

The African Methodist Episcopal Church is one of  America’s most venerable African-American institutions. With 2.5 million members [1] in thirty-five countries on five continents [2] it is one of the most populous and oldest  black churches  founded in the United States.  When a young talented preacher and former slave named Richard Allen led a small group of African American worshipers out of a Philadelphia Methodist church in the late 1700s, the seeds were planted for what would become the AME Church—a refuge and spiritual home for millions in the United States and around the world.

Childhood and Conversion

“I was born in the year of the Lord 1760, on February 14th, a slave to Benjamin Chew, of Philadelphia. My mother and father and four children of us were sold into Delaware State, near Dover, and I was a child and lived with him until I was upwards of twenty years of age, during which time I was awakened and brought to see myself poor, wretched, and undone, and without the mercy of God would be lost. Shortly after I obtained mercy through the blood of Christ and was constrained to exhort my old companions to seek the Lord.” [3] Continue reading Richard Allen and the AME Church, Part 1: Richard Allen

How ‘Mainstream’ is Mainstream News?

What does ‘mainstream’ mean in a deeply divided political environment? Is there a liberal bias in mainstream news?  In an op-ed written for the Christian Post I examine recent news coverage of CNN and other ‘mainstream’ outlets, and its potential impacts on a free flow of ideas between groups with opposing viewpoints.

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/the-leftward-slant-cnn-and-the-mainstream-medias-blind-spot.html

 

The Origins of Christmas Carols

Carolers on Christmas Eve, 1891. Original Artwork: Drawn by Arthur Hopkins. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A Brief History

The First Carols

On a trip from Rome in 1223,  Francis  of Assisi and his followers stopped at the small village of Grecia, near his birthplace. At the time, in some parts of the Christian Church, a system of beliefs, associated with the Paulician sect, had taken hold. While Paulicians believed the Gospel of Luke, and the letters of Paul, they did not believe that Jesus was indeed the son of Mary, because a good God could not have taken flesh and become man, who in their view, was fundamentally evil. Eager to combat this heresy and dramatize the Incarnation of God through the birth of Jesus Christ, St. Francis and his followers created what would become the first Nativity Scene, and sang hymns to the Lord Jesus [1]. As they sang songs (canticles) one of Francis’ followers had a vision of the saint (Francis) bending over a baby, laying in a trance, in the manger that he had constructed. As they sang the baby slowly awoke, symbolizing Christ bringing life to a dead and ‘wicked’ world [2]. The drama of that episode would later be captured in what later became known as the Christmas Mystery Play, and the songs that were sung  are said to be the precursor of the Christmas Carol. Continue reading The Origins of Christmas Carols

Sojourner Truth Part 2: Woman of Influence

Artist’s portrait of Sojourner Truth’s meeting with Abraham Lincoln in 1864 (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

This is the second of a two-part article on Sojourner Truth, the 19th century preacher, orator, anti-slavery, and women’s rights activist.  Born a slave in Ulster County, New York, she was never afforded the opportunity to learn to read or write. Yet, through fearless determination born of a deep Christian faith, she became one of the brightest lights in the civil-rights and women’s rights movements of the 19th century, lecturing and speaking to thousands, and meeting with some of the most influential figures of the period, including three presidents. Continue reading Sojourner Truth Part 2: Woman of Influence

Sojourner Truth Part 1: Isabella

Orator and Civil Rights Activist Sojourner Truth (1797 – 1883),

Arguably three of the most influential African Americans of the 19th century are Harriet Tubman, the ‘Moses’ of her people; the abolitionist Frederick Douglass; and Sojourner Truth. They may in fact be three of the most influential Americans of any race of that era. Truth was an itinerant preacher, anti-slavery activist, and women’s rights activist.  Born a slave she would develop into an acclaimed public speaker, achieving a stature that was matched by very few of any race. Luminaries of her era sought an audience with her, including Douglass, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, women suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and president Abraham Lincoln himself. More than a hundred years after her death her life remains a shining example of incredible courage, of an unshakable faith in God, and an uncanny ability to use that faith in deceptively simple but highly effective ways in the fight for justice, equality and respect among all peoples. Continue reading Sojourner Truth Part 1: Isabella

Howard Thurman: Jesus and the Disinherited

Theologian, pastor, professor, Dr. Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. reportedly carried a copy of a book entitled Jesus and the Disinherited with him. The author of the book was Howard Thurman, a theologian, pastor and professor, who, by some accounts, would become a mentor to several leaders of the non-violent civil rights movement. Inspired by the Gospels, Jesus and the Disinherited offers four basic principles to the marginalized and underprivileged, to prevail in their struggle against injustice and oppression, to realize their rightful place as full human beings with rights endowed not by man but by God.  Continue reading Howard Thurman: Jesus and the Disinherited