Black Domers Season 2, Part 5: Black Spirituality

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Greetings, and thank you for participating in our Black DOMERS series. My name is LaDawn Burnett. I am a 2012 graduate of Notre Dame Law School, and I proudly serve as the Alumni Relations Director of the Black Alumni of Notre Dame. Tonight is the final event in our Black History Month programming, where we have spent this month honoring and celebrating the contribution of Black DOMERS, as well as discussing aspects of Black life, politics, culture, entrepreneurship, well being, and spirituality. It is our hope that over the course of this programming, we have continued to build a community and connect with people globally to reflect upon the contributions made by the Black alumni. The Black Alumni of Notre Dame was founded to enhance the presence and experiences of African Americans across the Notre Dame family, students, faculty, administration, alumni, and alumnae. We hope you have found your time with the Black Domer Series insightful. Thought provoking, engaging, and actionable. Our goal is to contribute by being a force for good for the Notre Dame family. Be sure to stay with us to the end of the program. We will have some exciting announcements about the programming we have planned for you at the Triennial Black Alumni Reunion planned for this spring. At this time, I would like to thank the co sponsors of the Black Domer Series, ThinkND, and the Irish Compass, and the Notre Dame Alumni Association. And I desire to thank all of our special guests who have given their time and genius to share their experience, expertise, and thoughts with us this evening. If you have questions for any of us this evening, please use the Google form that we are sharing with you now. This will allow us to facilitate the questions as effectively as possible, and we'll try to answer as many of your questions as we can. Last week, we enjoyed an impactful conversation about Black well being. Tonight, we have another fantastic session lined up for you about Black spirituality, featuring two esteemed speakers who will discuss the faith experience of Black people and how faith influences our response to socioeconomic, They will also touch on the intersection of racial justice, religious freedom, and the black church. We are excited to explore how we can bridge the spiritual with the practical. First, let's please welcome Reverend Dr. Hugh Page, who is Vice President for Institutional Transformation and Advisor to the President and is a professor of theology and Africana Studies. Thank you. Welcome, Reverend Page. Next we have Dr. Jacqueline E. Rivers. Hello. A lecturer in sociology at Harvard University, the Executive Director and Senior Fellow for Social Science and Policy of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies, and a Senior Fellow at the King's College in New York City. Dr. Rivers also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Religious Liberty Initiative here at Notre Dame Law School. Welcome, Dr. Rivers. Before we dive into our discussion, I would like to remind you that you are welcome to ask questions through the link being provided in the chat now, and we'll try to answer as many of those as we can a little later on. my first question is for, Reverend Page. we hear the term Black Church, we hear it a lot. if you could, for us, give us an explanation of what do we mean when we say, quote unquote, the Black Church? and what is its history? Thanks. It's great to be here. I appreciate the invitation to, be part of this evening's conversation. a long time ago, the conversation about what the Black Church was, was really limited to historically African American denominations. And thankfully, the conversation has taken on additional sophistication over the subsequent decades since I was first introduced to the study of the Black Church in seminary. Let me start by saying that opinions vary among scholars and the general public about the nature of the Church. Those definitions focus on a variety of Aspects, some on history, some on the institutions themselves, some. Some on distinguishing features, some on ideas. And, several on various dimensions that identify the nature of that, institution. Of course, one would expect that there is, going to be pretty considerable debate, as to the nature of, the black church, and that has been the case over the years. And so I thought it would be helpful for me to share several perspectives, including my own, on what the black church is, and to do fairly quickly just to Give us a starting point. So first, there are those who would identify the black church as tradition and process We could go to the next slide. That would be great and These are three quotes from one of the standard textbooks on black church studies by Stacy Floyd Thomas at all called Black Church Studies and Introduction. And if you look at the very last of those quotations, we consider the Black Church tradition, and this is a definition that focuses on tradition, not as a fixed historical product, but rather as a fluid historical process in which black Christians engage one another, invent, embrace, and inherit this tradition that they argue over and care deeply about whether overtly or not. So focusing on a tradition, a set of general beliefs and practices handed on from generation to generation is the focus of this particular definition. next we have a slightly different definition from Alton Pollard. former dean of Howard University Divinity School, and I believe currently, dean of Louisville Seminary, in Kentucky, and Carol B. Duncan, a very well known, religious studies scholar from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. Their selection, their anthology of readings in black church studies, is another key, key textbook. they suggest that Perhaps the black church is best understood as a kind of paradigm. They refer to it as an analytical shorthand for the vast network of racial ethnic communities of Christian faith, worship, and life born out of and informed by the historic and present day experiences of people of African descent, whatever the tradition, and wherever they are found. Moving on. A third definition comes from Henry Louis Gates. Scholar at Harvard University, which focuses on the Black Church as something that has multiple identities, different ways of being understood. And Gates, in his, book accompanying, the, PBS series that he did on the Black Church called The Black Church, This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, suggests that there is no single Black Church, just as there is no single Black religion. But here we can see him say the traditions and faiths that fall under the umbrella of african american religion Particularly Christianity constitute two stories one of the people defining themselves in the presence of a higher power The other of their journey for freedom and equality in a land where power itself and even humanity For so long was and still is denied them and then to these three I think very comprehensive definitions that have influenced the way that I think about the black church, I would add a third. And, this is a relatively modest statement, but one that I think, attempts to sum up, the nature of various, and sundry, opinions about the nature of the church. I define the black church as institution, topic of discussion, and focus of academic study, and identify it as an evolving matrix of ideas. of practices, ways of knowing, modes of belonging, cultural norms, and visions of Christianity forged and continually evolving in a global context. And if we keep these four distinct definitions in mind, I think it gives us a starting point for understanding what exactly it is we're talking about when we refer to the black church. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Reverend Page. Dr. Rivers, we would like to also get your thoughts. If you could talk to us a little bit about the term religious freedom. Often when we use that term, we use it to refer to the ability of non Christians to practice their faith. but I'd like you to let us know whether the concept of religious freedom applies to the black church and why should black Christians in particular care about religious freedom. Well, first of all, I want to thank you very much for inviting me to join this conversation and to really say how glad I am to see that black spirituality is a part of the conversation because it is so important and has been so important in our community. Dr. Page gave four very, sophisticated definitions of the black church. for some of us, it's really just about church. And, but as he pointed out, it's been really central to our lives. And so the idea that religious freedom wouldn't apply to us is it's an arresting thought because religious freedom is really tries to everyone, even to people who don't have any particular faith. Because it is a right to respond to that internal calling that sense of what God is saying to you. And you might, at one point, have not be a person of faith, but you might sense the leading of the Holy Spirit. You might respond to the call of the gospel. So it's really just as important to the person who has no faith as. Someone who is Baha'i or someone who is Zoroastrian or someone who is Hindu. Religious freedom is important to every human being. It's a fundamental right. More fundamental even than the fact that it is in the first constitutional right in the United States. It's really a right, a human right, granted by God to each and every human being. So for that reason, it must be important to us as Black Christians. it's, but in, in our current setting in the United States, where there seems to be a decreasing tolerance for faith in general, but more particularly, I think, for Christian faith, it's all the more important for us. I want to give you one example. at the moment, I'm involved, in a friend of the court brief. on a case of religious land use and institutional Parsons Act, or RLUPA, as it is commonly known, where plaintiffs, just outside of New Orleans, one of them being a black Baptist church. Are challenging a zoning ordinance on the basis of environmental justice. That heavy industry is being placed more in black neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods. Now, there are obviously a lot of racial discrimination aspects to this case. But the way in which I'm involved is really through the religious freedom aspect. First of all. that Baptist Church, that Black Baptist Church, and some non profits working with them are saying that the government's zoning decisions has burdened their religious freedom because they no longer have the right to pray on unmarked cemeteries where our ancestors, formerly enslaved people, are buried in unmarked graves. Because these, this land is now being used for industrial facilities. So here is a black church making a claim about religious freedom. Another claim that they're making in this case is that the government is violating their RLUPA rights because There's they are being discriminated against that predominantly white Catholic churches are being protected from the location of these heavy industries near those churches, while black churches are not being, protected in the same way. Other ways in which it applies to us, a lot of Christian colleges serve a heavily black and Hispanic congregation. A lot of poor black students find that they're better able to complete their college education in these Christian colleges, yet some colleges are really facing challenges in California, a law was, being proposed, Which would have banned these, Christian colleges from getting federal funding based on the fact that these colleges had standards around sexual behavior, which was interpreted as being hostile to, the gay community. By the grace of God and through the intervention of Archbishop Gomez in LA and Bishop Charles E. Blake, who was then the presiding bishop of Church of God in Christ, and through the agency of other people, that never actually came to pass. But the immediate implications were that there would be a lot of black students who would have been affected. In a case in Philadelphia, around adoptive parents, it was black women who's, who were serving as adoptive parents. And I'm sorry, as foster parents, and they, their right to actually work with Catholic charities in terms of identifying children to adopt was being challenged on religious grounds. That's a case that Beckett Law won at the Supreme Court. protecting their right, to do that. And in addition to that, perhaps most fundamental, Christian faith has been so important in the Black community and continues to be so motivating churches to serve the needs of the poor. A study done in Philadelphia By Ram Kanan, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, found that over 90 million annually in services were being provided by black congregations just in the city of Philadelphia to provide services to their neighbors, things like educational programming. food for homeless people, clothing for those who needed it, cash assistance, a lot of these were being, and this was being provided on the basis of a commitment to Faith. Well, our faith, as Catholic social teaching says, is a seamless garment. The same faith that supports that kind of work in the Black community is the faith that dictates the position we take on family, sexuality, and gender. And if our ability To teach what we understand as the gospel regarding these issues is undermined, then our ability to serve in the community is also undermined because our faith begins to unravel. So I think it's just absolutely important to the Black community that religious freedom for all people of every faith, of no faith, and of every race be protected. Thank you for that, Dr. Rivers. really interesting, cases that you shared with us. I'd like to turn for a moment to, addressing, racial injustice and the history of black Christians and the black church in, leading major movements in America. To address racial injustice, we know, the abolition of slavery, we have Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, et cetera, the civil rights movement to counter Jim Crow segregation and terrorism in the South, Martin Luther King Jr., Annie Lou Hamer, I could go on, but it strikes me as, interesting that the Black Lives Matter movement was primarily led by secular people, not by Christians or the black church. And I'm interested in hearing your thoughts, Reverend Page and Dr. River, on why you think that was the case, and what role do individual black Christians have, what role does the black church, however, we're defining that, what roles do these individuals have in the black church have in addressing police reform from a Christian perspective? It's a, it's an incredibly important question. And if we look Historically, at those who have been leaders of resistance movements in American history, there are varieties of spiritualities that informed each one of those, key figures. you look at Sojourner Truth, and certainly impacted by indigenous, African American spiritual, traditions, and also by the Reformed Christian tradition. You look at Frederick Douglass, certainly influenced by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion tradition. The same thing, could be said of, of Harriet Tubman. If you look at Martin Luther King Jr., clearly influenced by, the Black Baptist tradition and also by the thinking of, his father, Martin Luther King Sr., and by their family friend. Howard Thurman. So you have mystical strains of Christianity also, implicated in his own formation. I think the same thing, can be said about African American responses to social injustice over the years. there have been Anglican approaches, Roman Catholic approaches, Black Methodist approaches. The interesting thing about the Black Lives Matter movement, as you've indicated, is that many of the voices who were most prominent in that work, and that ongoing, that ongoing process have been part of the LGBTQIA plus community. They've been women, and they've been individuals who were not embraced by the black church and by black church tradition, in many respects. and they themselves rejected, respectability politics. and discourses oriented toward wealth and politeness that we often see in African American Christianity, unfortunately. Black Christians and black churches, in response, have to reflect, now and in the future on what many have identified as the love mandate, which is at the heart of the gospel, and which we see, for example, very clearly articulated in the Johannine corpus in the Gospel of John and in, the Johannine letters. also in, the Pauline Corpus in certain places, for example, in the earliest of the New Testament letters, 1 Thessalonians, and in, the Book of Romans, where there are passages that explicitly, admonish the community to love one another. I think we also have to keep in mind our responsibility in Christian circles, however we define them, both within the black church, world and outside of it. To be inclusive social communities of conscience dedicated to several things. One is radical hospitality. Another is solidarity with those that are dispossessed in any way, shape, or form. And, another is to be responsible for transforming social structures that are inimical to human thriving and, to integral human development. And I think, these are Elements that are key within, Catholic social thinking, and also within, within the larger Catholic tradition. I think that Hold on. Yes, Dr. Rivers, go ahead. I think that it is very troubling that the black church, was not more involved with the protest against police violence. And I think that's a failure on our part. It's complicated from my perspective. It certainly is important for us to stand with and, join with movements for justice in every way that is compatible with the biblical teaching. And I, so I really thought it was important. I talked with some of my students about this, and of course I was teaching on, Sociology of Black America. And was glad to hear that some of them who are Christians had been involved in these protests, as I was myself, bearing a sign that identified me as a Christian. Because I think it's so important for us to send the message that we, as Christians, are committed to justice. However, I also think it's important that we show that radical hospitality in a way that does not undermine our understanding of the biblical anthropology and the biblical position on sexuality and family and gender. And so We have to do both of these things. it's really important for us also to bear in mind one of the things that troubles me greatly. I live in a poor neighborhood. and when we moved in, we had no idea how violent it was, but an extremely violent neighborhood where people were murdered within hundreds of yards of our home, not one person, but multiple people, where they're, I can remember walking with my children to Bible study at night, they were little and I had one on my left holding her hand and one on my right holding his hand and thinking, hope those young men don't shoot us. I know they're not going to be trying to shoot us, but they can shoot straight to save their lives. We lived in a very violent neighborhood. And in that neighborhood, many more young black men died at the hands of other young black men than died at the hands of the police. And whereas poverty explains much of that racial oppression, but we cannot simply accept it. It's also true that there's at least one study that has found that even though levels of crime are comparable in white neighborhoods, poor white neighborhoods and poor black neighborhoods, levels of homicide are not. Our young men, by one estimate, die at 10 times the rate. from that violence from each other than they do from police violence and we as a church have to stand against police violence, have to stand up against the kinds of things that happened to George Floyd, but we also have to minister to our young men and help them turn their lives around so that they won't be as swallowed up in the violence as they are currently. I understand that there are systemic issues, but we think Roots to this problem, but we can't simply turn our back on the problem because of that. You, touched on a phrase, systemic roots of, what we're seeing today. Um, I'd like you to provide our audience with some information about that. there's a lot of talk about, affirmative action. And I think it's really important that, people have some understanding of the origins of affirmative action and, how a host of, pardon me, landmark federal programs, initiatives, pieces of legislation, operated in a way that gave advantages to white people in general. To the exclusion of black people. Could you talk about that history that, those origins and why Christians of all races. To care about this, thank you for raising what is really a very important issue. And, in from here to equality, written by, economist at Duke University is really important to recognize that. The systemic nature of the discrimination and disadvantage that Blacks in the United States have faced did not end with slavery. It began with slavery, and slave labor built the country. It built industry in the North as well as in the South because there was shipping, there was insurance, there were Northern industries, the provision of goods for feeding slaves, there were All of these industries in the North have benefited from slavery. From the beginning, there is this systemic nature. The whole society being built on the, slave labor. But it didn't end there. Following that is Jim Crow, which further disadvantaged Black people. Because In some ways Jim Crow was in, not in all ways, but in some ways it might have been worse than slavery. During slavery, slaveholders were required to provide food and clothing for enslaved people. That wasn't true in Jim Crow. Not only were tenant farmers, black tenant farmers, responsible for their own food and clothing, but they were regularly cheated by the farmers whose land they worked. they Would find that after a year's labor and turning over crops to farmers, they were greater in debt than they had been at the beginning because they were overcharged for food that they bought at the store provided by the farmer or clothing or seed. this discrimination and disadvantage was continued in Jim Crow, but it didn't end there. You just talked about affirmative action. One of the books that I strongly recommend is When Affirmative Action Was White, by Ira Katznelson. And Katznelson, a political scientist at Columbia, really points out that the New Deal and the GI Bill were important sources of building the white middle class. He says it was the most important thing that built the white middle class. In particular, the New Deal created a situation in which Social security and unemployment insurance were initiated for the first time. But there were two industries that were excluded. And that was farm labor and domestic labor. The two industries in which black people were most heavily employed. As a result, in addition to that, and Katznelson makes the case that this was a deliberate decision made by Southern Democrats, by Dixiecrats. who were, white supremacists. He goes on to say not only did they exclude those two industries, but in addition to that, they created a system in which all decisions were made at the local level, so that racist, state officials were the ones who would decide who qualified for the benefits of social security and unemployment insurance, and that they discriminated heavily against blacks. The G. I. Bill is another example of Very same thing happening at the same period in which soldiers coming home from the war would have access to education on the job training, mortgages, and other benefits, which. were systematically denied to black soldiers who were returning. First of all, very often, they only, they didn't have, they were denied access to, to colleges in the south where most black people lived, and very few were admitted to colleges in the north. in addition to that, HBCUs had limited seats, so that very often these men could not actually, and it was predominantly men, could not access the college education that benefited white veterans. This was a huge boost to the white veterans. And as you said, LaDawn, it really was a form of affirmative action, because these were government provided benefits that went to white people and that built the white middle class. and put them in a position to own homes, which is the greatest source of wealth in the United States and is really the engine for not only building wealth at one generation, but the intergenerational transfer of wealth to the next generation. Black people were massively disadvantaged in all of those ways and the problem With, housing was amplified by redlining, which was initiated by the FHA, the Federal Housing Authority, which limited the insurance and the home loans that could be provided to black people, and in black neighborhoods. It doesn't end there, because at the point of industrialization, where, access to jobs is expanding as a, as people transfer from an agricultural society into an industrial society, black people got the worst jobs. The most poorly paid jobs, the dirtiest jobs, the most dangerous jobs, they didn't benefit from these industrial jobs in the same ways in which white people did. And I want to go back to the question of housing and redlining meant that black people bought in neighborhoods where their homes didn't appreciate at the same rate at which white people's homes did, or they couldn't buy at all. Overwhelmingly, black people, levels of homeownership have been much lower than among whites. And this has compounding effect because not only are you not able to transfer wealth, black people are not able to transfer wealth to the next generation, but the value of real estate was not transferred. Multiplying it as fast either because they didn't own real estate or because there were neighborhoods that were redlined and so values were kept low. This gives rise to systemic disadvantage and to a racial wealth gap which has been estimated to be ten times, for, with black people having ten times less wealth than white people. And It then gets to the point at which it's systemic. It is built in. It's baked into the system. It's baked into their disadvantages and wealth. It's baked into what kind of schools black people can access because living in poor inner city neighborhoods overwhelmingly, well, that's an overstatement, disproportionately living in poor inner city neighborhoods, black people don't have access of. to schools at the same level as white people have access to. That means they're disadvantaged in the job market, where racial discrimination continues to be a factor, as documented by sociologists, recently, pointing out the disadvantage that Even race counted more against a man than having a prison record. So all of these things are part of a system of discrimination where individuals no longer need to decide to discriminate. There's a system which disadvantages Black people and that is the kind of systemic discrimination that I'm talking about. Thank you for that, Dr. Rivers. I'd also, I'd like some thoughts on why Christians should care about this. Oh, yes. it's obvious why Black Christians should care. Yes. But I do think that, it's important that we speak to, the entire body of Christ because there's this concept of, pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, that, that, that phrase is continuously inserted into this conversation. Yes. And what is troubling to me about that is that goes to work ethic. So when you say that, okay, the work ethic is the same, from a Christian perspective, we know the word talks about diligence and God cares about that. So let's set aside, this thought that Black people aren't being, good stewards over their gifts or their talents, that they aren't being, hard workers. That's not the issue here. It seems to me that the issue is that, at some point in our history, where there were opportunities to make advancement, black people were excluded from those opportunities. And there, they didn't start with the same opportunities. To utilize this propensity to work hard as their white counterparts did. again, if you could talk about That's absolutely right. I'm sorry, LaDawn, that I overlooked that. I would add one other thing, and that is that very often, because black people did work very hard, they sometimes got ahead and were able to establish black, successful black neighborhoods, such as Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Which very often would actually provoke so much envy and outrage among white people that they would face the kind of fate that Black Wall Street did, where it was burned to the ground and black people were murdered in large numbers. Same thing happened in Rosewood in, Florida. So it's absolutely true that it was not a lack of hard work, but a combination of this systemic disadvantage and also outright violence. Why does this matter to black, to Christians of any race? Because we are committed to following Christ. And We're going to talk in a little while about our commitment as Christians to justice, but in addition to justice, we are supposed to protect the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger. We are supposed to, Protect those who are vulnerable, and if we have a society which is taking advantage of people and which is not providing equal access for them, then it is our job as Christians, not just to care, but also to act, to do whatever we can. And I often say when I speak on these subjects that the most important first step is to educate ourselves about the reality and about the discrimination, about the injustice that exists so that we can act wisely. That we can, vote wisely, that we can advocate for policy changes that actually make sense, so that we are well informed and understand what our responsibility is as Christians. Great. thank you, Dr. Rivers, for that great segue, into, what I think is also an important aspect of this conversation. modern Christianity has really grasped the revelation that God is love. Today's church, pretty much any church that, that you go into of any denomination or be it a non denominational church, there will be a very free discussion about the love of God and how much Jesus loves us as individuals. And, I think that's wonderful. I think that's great. it's very necessary. But it seems to me that in all of this talk about love, We have become imbalanced in that we failed to, grasp or remember that our God is also a God of justice and that, consistent with that reality, the vast majority of the recorded history of Jesus involved Him teaching about justice, we see that in Matthew 5, 2 10, rebuking the unjust, that's Luke 11, 42, and ensuring those that who desire justice, that they will have their fill. That's Matthew 5 and 6, Luke 18 and 7. And we see from the Word that justice cannot be separated from the love of God. So my question to you both, what are your thoughts on how we as Black Christians awaken a love for justice, not just amongst ourselves, But in the larger body of Christ, I'll answer very briefly and then I'd love to hear what dr Rivers has to say about this. I think it's important to keep in mind that if you look at the testimony that we have from Both portions of the Bible from the Hebrew Bible and from the New Testament There's a general understanding that love and justice as you've just said Ladan are part of a single cosmic fabric. And they are absolutely inseparable entities. But it's incredibly important that we keep in mind that the notion of love that we see, for example, in, in the Hebrew concept of Ahava, or in the New Testament concept of agape, that this is not the kind of flowery, romantic love. That we often, think about and that we often talk about in modern settings. Ahava, for example, if you look at the Song of Songs, is a divine mystery, an all consuming fire that raises in the mind of sages and the wise, what it means to give oneself to it. If you look at the concept of agape in many New Testament sources, the idea is that this is a self giving, sacrificial kind of emotion, a, an attachment that is indissoluble, that does not allow others to be discarded or thrown away. It's a contract for a relationship that is ongoing. And that requires of us, attachment, the creation of a community in which that, artificial, continuum between insiders and outsiders is erased, where everyone is an insider, and where the goal of building community is, more important than anything else. I think it's important to keep in mind, as we think about, How to keep these two concepts, love and justice, united in terms of our ongoing efforts to build community and to make the world a better place, we have to pursue both with an eye towards sustaining everyone and treating no one as expendable. And that means recognizing that this kind of work is fundamentally dangerous, that it is enormously draining, and that it requires Indefatigable energy, ongoing strategic thinking, and one of those things that I think, we're often loathe to embrace when it comes to, justice and transformational work, and that's boldness and courage. Very well said, Reverend Page. I have to agree with you. I would add that Jesus defines himself when he announces his ministry in, Luke 4, 18. He says, The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to declare freedom to the captive. And he says in Matthew 5, 17, that he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. But clearly central to the law, to the prophets, is concern, a commitment to justice. We as Christians, I think, have to begin to understand how fundamental and important justice is to who God is. And as we are committed to being transformed by the Holy Spirit into the very image of Jesus Christ, then we must be ready to take on His passion for justice. It is striking, and this was one of the things actually that, enslaved People recognized. They recognized That slaveholders were undermining the Bible, that they weren't teaching the fact that God was a God of justice as they tried to, to the extent to which there were attempts to evangelize them, evangelize enslaved people. And that was because if you look at it time and time again, Yahweh defines himself by his liberating act in the Exodus. In Ezekiel 34, 27, he says, And they shall know that I am the Lord when I break the bars of their yoke and deliver them from the hand of those who enslave them. God defines himself time and time again to the ancient Israelites as the God of justice. In Isaiah 1 17, he says, learn to do justice. The prophet says, learn to do justice, do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless, cleave the case of the widow. When God is telling them through Isaiah, he's telling the ancient Israelites. I am displeased with you. All of your sacrifices, all of this means nothing to me. I abhor them. Why? Because you are not working for justice. In fact, the whole law was structured to implement justice. The central attack was in the institution of the Jubilee, where the law required that every 49 years all land would be returned to the family from which it had been bought, and all Israelite slaves would be freed. In other places it says the slaves would be freed every seven years. So that there could be no permanent slavery. Now, an enslaved Israelite did have the right to stay in the condition of slavery, but that was optional. So the law was structured to work for justice. It was structured to take care of the poor. Every seven years the land had to be fallow, and whatever grew by itself was free for the poor to go and reap and eat. Landowners couldn't glean to the very edge of their fields. What had to be left, what, was left on the edges was for the poor, for wild animals even. what fell when they were reaping was supposed to be left for the poor. Weeders and orphans had to have access to the, whatever was left in the fields after the harvest. justice was so central to God, it was built into the law, it was built into the structure of Israelite society, and we as Christians are called to do the same. I think the way we inspire a love of justice is by deepening our love of Christ. By deepening our love of God the Father, by recognizing and, doing exactly what you're doing here, LaDawn. Educating people to how important justice is to our Father in Heaven. Encouraging Christians of every race, pattern ourselves on Him with a passion for justice. Wonderful, wonderful. I think now would be a good time to turn to some questions that we've received. I'll start with this one. You guys, I think it's important to now really talk about some, practical ways that we can incorporate or act on, what we've been hearing. So here's the question. What are some practical ways faith communities can identify and cultivate relationships with neighborhood influencers? Who might be most involved or most at risk in the culture of violence like you described in your neighborhood? And that question is directed to you, Dr. Rivers. Thank you very much, LaDawn. So, we developed something called a 10 point plan to try and address the question of violence. And one step that we suggested was that churches adopt a gang. Maybe your church isn't quite ready for that move. But, beginning to build relationships with young people and to provide safe spaces for them, perhaps they're not yet involved with violence, but what we found, so I should say that, we work for years. with young people, especially young men caught up in violence or, with crime. And we found that there were a handful who were deeply involved, but that many of them were really just on the edges. And that we could get to them and help redirect. the course of their lives by providing a safe space for them after school, by providing alternative activities for them, by providing alternative sources of bonding. Because very often the power of the gang comes from a sense of family that forms between these young people. So I think reaching out to the young people in our neighborhoods, if we're in inner city neighborhoods, connecting with churches that are in inner city neighborhoods, if we're not located there, building these relationships with young people, perhaps before they've gotten involved with violence, while they're still on the edges of violence, and if there is the level of cultural, sensitivity and knowledge to actually begin to work directly with these young men, helping them find alternative sources of income, because very often what they're doing is, they're not in the. They're basically operating in an informal economy, but if we can plug them into the formal economy, help them find decent jobs, then we can help redirect even those who are currently caught up in violence. I don't want to suggest, though, that it's an easy fix, nor do I want to suggest that every church is ready to take on the kids who are already involved with violence. Reverend Page, I have a question, that I would really like to get your thoughts on. how do African and diaspora faith traditions provide comfort, community, healing, and liberation in these times that we're experiencing? Particularly for people who might not see themselves as, someone who embraces a faith life. Yeah, I think, in some ways we have to recover many of those practices because There's been an awful lot of pressure applied to those within the african american community the afro diasporan community here in the u. s to embrace In some ways uncritically christian norms for engaging the world and as a result, there's a certain amount of embarrassment about Practices that may have been part of, part of the survival toolkit of our ancestors, whether it's the embrace of indigenous Africana spiritualities or ways of engaging and thinking about the world that, oftentimes we were encouraged to leave behind. So, one scholar, Kevin Young, who, was, at one point director of the Schomburg Institute and is now, a key figure at the National Museum of African American History in his book, The Gray Album, says that what we need to do is be, collectors and curators of traditions and practices that have often been forgotten or put aside, within our community by our elders, to reclaim those and to think about ways of passing those survival traditions on to others and maybe even embracing some of them ourselves. That's, again, work that requires strategic and critical thinking and that, to a certain extent may require us to ask some very probing questions of those who are leaders of the black church about why those things have been pushed to the side or discouraged. in a sense, if you think about one such tradition of truth telling in the black community. I think about blues, and I think about the epistemologies that are at the heart of the blues tradition and the ways that, truth telling can occur within that matrix that, may be frowned upon in, polite circles within the black church world. I think there are ways that we have to reclaim some of these things that are a part of our heritage. And, make sure that they're not lost, to pass them on to the next, generation of, of, of our community. And to equip them with the critical tools needed to engage and selectively embrace or reject, all of those things, so that, we have more than one, set of skills in our toolkit for survival. Thank you for that, Reverend Page. Along those same lines, and I think also picking up on comment that Dr. Rivers shared, here's a question that touches on a perspective that I think a lot of Black Christians have, and I think it's a perspective that a lot of those who are open to Christianity have, but, are experiencing some hesitation. here's a question. How can we reconcile that the quote unquote church did harm to Blacks during enslavement and that some of the residual effects of that exist today? Well, I do think we have to acknowledge that Western Christianity has been extremely exploitative and destructive, but I think it's also important for us to look back beyond Western Christianity to the roots of Christianity. The early Christian fathers, many of them were African, Augustine was African, and they really shaped Christianity in important ways. in terms of some of the principles that we embrace today, such as using scripture to interpret scripture, these men, predominantly men, there were some women, there were, in particular, Perpetual and Felicity were two early Christian martyrs. Who are Africans and who are women, they really shaped Christianity and we have got to reclaim Christianity, not as a Western religion, but really as a religion rooted in the Middle East and even in Africa. In addition to that, one of the things that is striking is it was when during the second grade, awakening, when the evangelical. The evangelicals, the Baptists in particular, were adopting a kind of radical racial equality that enslaved people were most open to receiving the gospel and joined the Christian church in large numbers. It is there's a transforming power when we as Christians live up to the mandate of the gospel and put aside the corruptions that came, such as with white slave holders seeking their own interests and their. And, exploiting, economically exploiting enslaved people. We have to look back to these things, and then we have to examine ourselves and say, how can we be true to what the gospel demands of us in a current society where racial exploitation and racial disadvantage continue to exist? How can we witness to people who are having the kinds of hesitations you're talking about, LaDawn, that Jesus is really on the side of the poor? He's on the side of those who are oppressed, and how can we, by our lives, live that out? As we bring in the historical context, how can we give contemporary proof to the reality of the gospel to encourage those who are raising the questions, such as, to what Dr. Rivers has said, I would, with which I agree, I would add that, we have a lot of work to do in terms of more sophisticated analysis of The social, political, and other forces that shape and perpetuate ongoing inequities, those that are economic, those that are social, and the like, and that marginalize members of our community and keep them from trusting, institutions like the church. So I think this is, this goes back to the earlier question about the Black Lives Matter movement and why the leaders of that movement were not. the same leaders that you saw in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the like, a generation earlier. We have to find ways to bring back those who feel that they've been shunted aside, those who have been marginalized within our own community. And find ways of entering into creative dialogue and trust building, with them. Because at this point, I think there are those within the Africana community, in the U. S. and globally, who don't believe that the Church is a safe place in which to be. And until we overcome that, and figure out what the factors are that have contributed to that alienation, we're gonna be We're going to be at, at a considerable distance from agreement that might well bring them back. And they have to be a part of the community that we embrace, if we're really going to call it a beloved community. Well said, Reverend Page. Thank you. I would like to, ask one question to really, I think bring it home here. properly to Notre Dame. There's a question here at Lover's Page, if you could offer your thoughts. What is Notre Dame doing at an administrative level to incorporate and enhance the black church or the experience of black Christians at Notre Dame? That's a great question. And, what I can say is that, the work of Notre Dame Campus Ministry is, Leading the way in terms of creating the beloved community on campus and in creating ministries that reach out across cultural, cultural boundaries. we also have a good bit of effort around embracing, the work of the Black Catholic Church, and have been doing so for several years now. in terms of the larger. engagement of the church. The Department of Africana Studies actually started in 2012 what we call the Black Church Studies Colloquy. It's not an ongoing Institute, but it is a conversation. An ongoing conversation that convenes, maybe every other year, to bring together leaders of the Black Church Broadly Understood and members of the Black Christian community in the South Bend area to talk about issues of importance. issues that are emerging, issues that, are important for us to engage, if we're going to have ongoing vitality within the, within the Black Church Broadly Understood. So those are a couple of things to which I can point, I think our larger effort to engage in, diversity, equity, and inclusion work and to define it as part of an, part of a mission defined, matrix of initiatives oriented toward institutional transformation and making that part of our, part of our institutional thrust. For the foreseeable future is also a way of doing this, this kind of work that touches on life within the black church, that engages the black community broadly understood, and that promises to help us be a place, now and in the future where the church. can do it's praying and it's thinking about, things that are really important and that matter many. Thanks for that. Reverend page before we close out our program, I would like to give. Dr rivers an opportunity if you have any, parting thoughts that you'd like to share with our audience. Please. Well, I would like to just say that, my husband, Reverend Eugene Rivers, who is the director of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies, and I have worked closely with, Professor Carter Sneed and the DeNicola Center for Early, for, Center for Ethics and Culture. I really admire the work they're doing there, but I especially want to, point Black DOMERS to the Dean of the Law School, Dean Marcus Cole, who has initiated the Religious Liberty Initiative. And is doing absolutely astounding work there. for those who don't know this work, I encourage you to find out about it. It's really shaping a generation of lawyers who will be sensitive to the issue of religious liberty. And he, in addition to that. Dean Cole is really taking on an international scope, interested in looking into issues of religious persecution in Nigeria, in China. It is just, inspiring and absolutely courageous work, so I just want to Encourage those who don't know about the work of Dean Cole and the Religious Liberty Initiative to find out more about it. Thank you for that, Dr. Rivers, and thank you for your time and for joining us this evening. Thank you also, Reverend Page. It has been such a pleasure and a delight to have you both with us to talk about this very important topic. And thank you again to our audience for joining us. we appreciate, your time in joining us and, thank you for asking your questions. we appreciate your engagement. Each of our programs has been recorded, and it's also available as a podcast, so please feel free to share this series with your family and friends, re watch these wonderful events, or catch up on any that you may have missed. before we sign off, I'd also like to, give you another friendly reminder, about our Triennial Black Alumni Notre Dame Reunion, which will be occurring May 31st through June 2nd. It is on the horizon, please, make your arrangement to join us on that weekend. We will come together and celebrate our shared history, our accomplishments, and the enduring bond that unites us as Black DOMERS. It promises to be a weekend filled with camaraderie, reflection, and joy. Please find more information and register at REUNION. md.edu. Thanks again for your engagement and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Go Irish. Thank you, Ladon. Thank you everyone. I'm afraid I will have to run, but this was, extremely challenging and helpful. Thank you. It was good to be here with you this evening. Thank you, Reverend Page.