The Church of George Washington and Robert E. Lee Struggles With History

From Christian Post-

The suburban Washington church known for its historical ties to George Washington and Robert E. Lee made headlines last year when it decided to remove monuments of the country's first president and the controversial Confederate general.

Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, sits prominently a block off King Street, the main thoroughfare, on Washington Street (how appropriate!) in the city's Old Town district. Nearby you find a mixture of colonial and faux colonial architecture intermixed with 19th century townhomes and some modern edifices. The architectural styles vary, but brick is predominant.

This gives the city a charming appearance, much like Georgetown but with slightly more affordable real estate and considerably better public schools than the nation's capital.

Designed by the architect James Wren, of no relation to the considerably more famous Sir Christopher Wren, Christ Church was built between 1765 and 1773. Back then it was a parish of the Church of England, when the established church of the mother country was also established in Virginia and some of the other original 13 colonies.

As such, it epitomizes the stereotype that many have of the Episcopal Church — you know, the church of presidents and the establishment. While that was true once upon a time, Episcopalians today are increasingly uncomfortable with their history, particularly against the intersectionality that dominates Mainline Protestant denominations.

More here-

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/the-church-of-george-washington-and-robert-e-lee-struggles-with-history.html

US Episcopalians confront hard truths about Church’s role in slavery and black history

From ACNS-

Brutal scenes of physical and psychological violence in the 2016 film “The Birth of a Nation” flashed across a screen set up inside a small chamber at the Episcopal Cathedral of St John the Divine. A few viewers turned away, while some gasped and others watched steadily. The film is based on the true story of Nat Turner, a slave preacher who led a rebellion in 1831.

Vivian Evans, 82, didn’t turn away.

“When I was 10 years old, I interviewed friends of my grandmother’s in Mississippi who had been slaves. She had me pick cotton to see what it was like, and I pricked my fingers just like they did in the movie,” Evans, a member of Trinity St Paul’s Episcopal Church in New Rochelle, New York, told the others during a discussion after the film.

The Episcopal Diocese of New York Reparations Committee on Slavery organised the film screening and discussion as part of its Year of Lamentation to examine the diocese’s role in slavery. It’s one of a growing number of events across the United States as the Episcopal Church seeks racial reconciliation and healing among its congregations and wider communities.

More here-

http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2018/02/us-episcopalians-confront-hard-truths-about-churchs-role-in-slavery-and-black-history.aspx

African-American deaconess honored at Episcopal church she founded in countryside north of Brunswick

From Georgia (via Florida)-

Speaking in the modest country church Deaconess Anna Ellison Butler Alexander founded in 1894, the Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry said she lived the same “Why not” life as Christ during a service Saturday to celebrate her life.

The deaconess is buried in front of the original unpainted two-story Good Shepherd Episcopal Church she founded in the countryside on Pennick Road . It’s also where she founded a parochial school in the building in 1902 and began teaching children to read. In 1907, she was ordained the first African-American deaconess in the Episcopal Church.

She is buried directly in front of the church and school were a monument provides all her history except for her birth, said Anna Iredale, a publicist for the Episcopal Church.

“We say 1865, the year of emancipation,” on Butler Plantation where her parents were newly freed, Iredale said.

More here-

http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2018-01-20/african-american-deaconess-honored-episcopal-church-she-founded-countryside

Congregation fights to save church where Harriet Tubman worshipped

From The Guardian-

The modest wooden frame of the Salem Chapel British Methodist Episcopal Church was laid in the 1850s by former slaves as they settled into their new lives in Canada.

The stucco-clad gabled church soon became a focal point for the community; hosting not only worshippers but gatherings of civil rights activists and abolitionists – including the church’s most famous attendee, American Harriet Tubman.

Some 160 years later, the chapel in St Catharines, Ontario – built near the final terminus of the Underground Railroad’s eastern line – continues to hold service every Sunday. But the building has fallen into disrepair, prompting the congregation to launch campaign aimed at preserving this sliver of history for generations to come.

More here-

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/12/congregation-fights-to-save-church-where-harriet-tubman-worshiped

Harriet Tubman’s Canadian church seeks help for repairs

From Western NY-

A century and a half ago, a new Canadian church gave fleeing slaves a place to worship. Now the sanctuary that welcomed Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman and other escapees needs help itself.

The dwindling membership of Salem Chapel, a British Methodist Episcopal church just north of Niagara Falls, has started a crowdsourcing campaign (their gofundme page is here) in hopes of raising C$100,000 — the equivalent of $77,486 in U.S. currency.

The congregation wants to shore up the building, which is in an area where heavy traffic has contributed to its shifting foundation.

More here-

http://ptoday.blogspot.com/2017/11/harriet-tubmans-canadian-church-seeks.html

The complicated story behind the famous hymn ‘Amazing Grace’

From PRI-

“It seems kind of like an all-purpose, hopeful song,” says Steve Turner, author of “Amazing Grace: The Story of America's Most Beloved Song.” But while the song has a universal message, its origins are much more complex.

For one, while the song is a well-known anthem of the civil rights movement, its original text was written by a former slave trader. John Newton was an Anglican priest in England in 1773, when he debuted a hymn to his congregation called “Faith’s Review and Expectation.”

The hymn opened with a powerful line: “Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That sav’d a wretch like me!” And it drew on Newton’s own experience as a slave trader — specifically, from a near-death experience he’d had decades earlier, when the slave ship he was on encountered a violent storm, prompting him to convert to Christianity. (Newton didn’t speak out against slavery until 1788.)

The hymn wasn’t particularly popular in England, according to Deborah Carlton Loftis, executive director of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. But she says in the United States, it became well-known during the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s when thousands of people — white and black — would gather for outdoor revival meetings.

Songs were important to these meetings — although not always exactly as they were written. Revival leaders frequently switched out melodies and borrowed verses from other hymns. “There were choruses and refrains that people could learn quickly,” Loftis says.

More here-

https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-04-30/complicated-story-behind-famous-hymn-amazing-grace

Former slave's grave unfolds mystery at St. Philip's

From Baltimore-

Behind St. Philip's Episcopal Church on the corner of Main and Sixth streets is a small cemetery with a big mystery. Headstones bear the names of some longtime, historical Laurel families: Snowden, Stanley, Talbott, Cronmiller, Dodge, Vanduesen and Haslup. At the far end, next to Prince George Street, it also contains the gravesite of a former slave, Mary Ann Simmes, who died in 1887, the only such grave at St. Philip's. Who was the woman and why is she buried there?

Two St. Philip's parishioners, Betsy Welsh and Mickey Evans, have worked to unfold the mystery of this grave.

The original headstone, which is still there, is so weathered that it is hard to read. A new stone monument, which was dedicated in November 2016, has a brass plaque that reads: "This place marks the final resting place of Mary A. Simmes. Her original headstone reads: In Memory of Mary Ann Simmes. Our Dear Old Mammy, by Those She Loved. Died August 21, 1887 in the 86th Year of Her Age"

More here-

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/laurel/ph-ll-history-slave-grave-20170410-story.html

Episcopal Diocese Reckons With Rhode Island's Slaving Past

From Rhode Island-

From the “Welcome to Bristol” sign at the town line, and along Hope Street’s red-white-and-blue stripe to the postcard-perfect Federal-style homes at its center, Bristol wears its Colonial past proudly. But one September evening, about forty Bristolians gathered in St. Michael’s Episcopal Church to talk about a past the town is not so eager to tell — the great crime that built Bristol: slavery.

Slavery was the economic lifeblood of the entire state for eighty years. Rhode Island passed its first law forbidding enslavement in 1652, but the law changed and the practice flourished apace with its profitability. From before the American Revolution to the Industrial Revolution, the slave trade powered Rhode Island’s rum distilleries and the textile mills, spinning cotton picked by Southern slaves into cheap “negro cloth” that was sold back to the South. Slavery employed the carpenters, the clerks, the bankers and the blacksmiths. Everyone made money from the slave trade, but few made more than the DeWolf family of Bristol.

More here

http://www.rimonthly.com/Rhode-Island-Monthly/December-2015/Episcopal-Diocese-Reckons-With-Rhode-Islands-Slaving-Past/

St. Paul's Episcopal Church to remove images of Confederate flags

From Richmond-

The historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church known as the “Cathedral of the Confederacy” has begun removing all images of the Confederate flag from within its walls.

The measure includes six plaques with various versions of the Confederate flag, the church’s coat of arms with the flag on kneelers at the high altar, and bookplates in some books in the church’s library.

The coat of arms will be retired, and the church will start to dig deeper in its history, the role of race and slavery in that history, and how parishioners can engage in conversations about race in the Richmond region, church leadership announced Sunday, three months after conversations began with the congregation.

More here-

http://www.richmond.com/life/faith-values/article_c63ecfcc-b7ae-589b-aac5-e9142ac7475f.html

A remarkable tale of slavery and opportunity in early Detroit

From Michigan-

Tucked into a bucolic corner on Grosse Ile, an island community in the Detroit River, a small wooden Gothic Revival chapel adjoins the congregation of St. James Episcopal Church. The building is quaint and charming, matching the leafy setting and peaceful environment of the island. The story of the building’s existence, though, dates back nearly 150 years and testifies to the enduring friendship of two remarkable women and serves as a reminder of Michigan's oft overlooked history with the institution of slavery. Along the way, the story includes quite a few famous names from Detroit history, as well as some statewide firsts.

More here-

http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/Grosse-Ile-Elizabeth-Denison-082015.aspx

Did Religion Make the American Civil War Worse?

From The Atlantic-

If there is one sober lesson Americans seem to be taking out of the bathos of the Civil War sesquicentennial, it’s the folly of a nation allowing itself to be dragged into the war in the first place. After all, from 1861 to 1865 the nation pledged itself to what amounted to a moral regime change, especially concerning race and slavery—only to realize that it had no practical plan for implementing it. No wonder that two of the most important books emerging from the Sesquicentennial years—by Harvard president Drew Faust, and Yale’s Harry Stout—questioned pretty frankly whether the appalling costs of the Civil War could be justified by its comparatively meager results. No wonder, either, that both of them were written in the shadow of the Iraq War, which was followed by another reconstruction that suffered from the same lack of planning.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/did-religion-make-the-american-civil-war-worse/401633/

A Providence Slavery Center in Old Episcopal Cathedral

From Rhode Island Public Radio-

Rhode Island’s Episcopal Church is about to unveil plans for a museum and teaching center dedicated to the slave trade. The state has a long and difficult history of involvement  in slavery.  RIPR political analyst Scott MacKay discussed the proposal with Episcopal Bishop Nicholas Knisely, whose wife happens to work for Rhode Island Public Radio.

St. John’s Cathedral, once the nation’s oldest cathedral parish, sits empty today in a forlorn reminder of onetime greatness.

The Gothic and classical  building on North Main Street  with a leaking roof and structural damage, was closed for lack of money for repairs three years ago. A storied history doesn’t always pay the bills.

Now, Bishop Nicholas Knisely, leader of Rhode Island’s Episcopalians, wants to reopen the building as a "Center for Reconciliation," a museum, worship center and classroom of sorts for the study of Rhode Island’s role in the era of slavery.

More here-

http://ripr.org/post/providence-slavery-center-old-episcopal-cathedral

Shuttered US cathedral may become slave trade museum as Episcopal Church seeks to unbury past

From Rhode Island-

A plan to open what would be the nation's only museum centered on the trans-Atlantic slave trade would focus on the Episcopal Church's role in its history and the sometimes-buried legacy of slavery in northern states like Rhode Island.

The museum at the shuttered Cathedral of St. John, a church where slaves once worshipped, would explore how the church benefited from the trade and helped bring it to an end, said Bishop Nicholas Knisely of the Diocese of Rhode Island.

"Our story's mixed," he said. "We haven't talked in the country about the role of religion and religious voices in abolition and the slave trade."

To make it happen, the diocese is working with the Tracing Center, a group set up by descendants of what was once the nation's most prolific slave-trading family, and Brown University, which in recent years has worked to come to grips with its own connection to slavery.

More here-

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/27/shuttered-us-cathedral-may-become-slave-trade-museum-as-episcopal-church-seeks/

Catholic and Anglican Churches unite for anti-slavery campaign

From The Telegraph-

An Australian jackaroo-turned-mining magnate brought together the Anglican Church and the Vatican on Monday in an ambitious plan to stamp out modern-day slavery, which affects an estimated 30 million people worldwide.

Andrew Forrest, known by his schoolboy nickname “Twiggy” in his home country, has pledged to use part of his £3 billion fortune to eradicate indentured labour, the trafficking of women and girls for sex and other forms of 21st century slavery by the year 2020.

The 52-year-old mining tycoon, who worked in his youth as a “jackaroo” or cowboy on a vast outback cattle station in the rugged Pilbara region of Western Australia, brought together the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church in an unprecedented inter-faith effort to tackle the issue.

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/10703863/Catholic-and-Anglican-Churches-unite-for-anti-slavery-campaign.html

Conn. slave who died in 1798 called 'child of God'

From Connecticut-

A slave who died more than 200 years ago in Connecticut but was never buried was given an extraordinary funeral Thursday that included lying in state at the Capitol and calls for learning from his painful life.

The enslaved man known as Mr. Fortune was buried in a cemetery filled with prominent citizens after a service at the Waterbury church where he had been baptized. Earlier in the day, his remains lay in state in the Capitol rotunda in Hartford.

"Our brother Mr. Fortune has been remembered, and it is with restored dignity his bones shall be buried," the Rev. Amy D. Welin of St. John's Episcopal Church in Waterbury told hundreds gathered for the service. "We bury Mr. Fortune not as a slave, but as a child of God who is blessed."

More here-

http://www.theintelligencer.com/article_602a31b0-033c-53cc-87a6-1fadf446b4db.html

White House council calls for action on modern-day slavery

From RNS-

A White House advisory council of religious leaders called for a global fund to address human trafficking and urged a new labeling system to help identify consumer goods that were not created with slave labor.

With a 36-page report released Wednesday (April 10), the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships hopes to build awareness of the estimated 21 million people worldwide who are subjected to sexual exploitation or forced labor.

“Abraham Lincoln said if slavery is not wrong then nothing is wrong, and we know that sadly 150 years later slavery still exists,” said Susan K. Stern, chair of the council and an adviser to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. “Today with this report we say, ‘Enough.’”

More here-

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/04/10/white-house-council-calls-for-action-on-modern-day-slavery/

Ministry puts pastor face-to-face with 21st century slaves

From Iowa (written by an Episcopal priest)

Human trafficking sounds like something that happens in third world countries to nameless, poverty-stricken foreigners, but the truth of it is human trafficking happens right here in the Quad-City area, every day.

My ministry puts me in Quad-City places where I’ve met many women who tell me they’ve been bought and sold.

Here are two real stories from women I met in our community.

The first I’ll call Karen. She was born is Asia and was brought to this country by promises of a job as a maid or seamstress. Once here, she learned quickly that she would have no say in her life. Karen was raped repeatedly and taught that she was damaged goods and could not go home. Worse, she was told there was no one in the U.S. who cared or wanted to help. She had been sold four or five times by the time I met her and learned her story.

Her eyes always looked past me, making sure her handler wouldn’t catch her speaking with a priest. Her slaver made her have sex for money with any man or woman who would pay. Her slaver had bought her and her debts from another man. For her to earn her freedom, she had to pay off that debt.
More here-


http://qctimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/guest/ministry-puts-pastor-face-to-face-with-st-century-slaves/article_d3e27ad4-5b97-11e2-9eac-0019bb2963f4.html

Richard Dawkins Linked to Slave-Owning Ancestors, Suggests It's an Attack for Being an Outspoken Atheist

From The "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" Department-

Early this morning, the Sunday Telegraph reported on an "awkward revelation" for the well-known atheist and author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins: his eighteenth century ancestors owned upwards of 1,000 slaves and the Dawkins family estate was purchased in part with (slave) blood money. Dawkins has responded, calling the story a "smear tactic" and "surreal," and implying it's payback for a "week of successfully rattling cages," including that of a well-known Anglican leader.

While it seems entirely beside the point who Dawkins' ancestors were—some were leading abolitionists, after all—at least one group has already intimated that he should make reparations for his family's "crimes against humanity." Reparations is not a subject to be laughed away, to be sure, but what particularly stood out in this story was evidence of an agenda behind the Telegraph story, going by a Guardian report that came out several hours later.

Dawkins said a reporter had called him and named a number of his ancestors who he said were slave owners. After the reporter quoted the biblical verse about the Lord "visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation" Dawkins said he ended the conversation. However, he said the reporter rang back and suggested Dawkins may have inherited a "slave supporting" gene from his distant relative.

More here-

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/02/well-known-atheist-sees-slavery-story-as-attack.html

Forgive us our trespasses

From New Jersey-

A man named Robert Johnson was remembered.

So were women named Nancy Johnson, Betty Ellison, Susan Gibson, and Mary Johnson’s daughter, Mary, along with a 9-month-old baby, a 1-year-old child and a 2-year-old.

Although no one knew them personally, 38 slaves and servants of African descent who were buried in the cemetery at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in the 1700s and 1800s, many without their full names being recorded, were remembered Wednesday during a service of repentance and reconciliation at the historic church on Rector Street.

A memorial grave marker honoring them was unveiled in the cemetery. Some are believed to have been buried in a common grave. The name or a description of each person was read by Episcopal church leaders during the evening ceremony.

More here-

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20110812/NJLIFE11/308120012/Forgive-us-our-trespasses

Episcopalian Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to present apology for church’s complicity in slavery

From Western NC-

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the national Episcopal Church will visit the diocese Saturday, April 9, to preside and preach at a major Service of Repentance, Healing and Reconciliation at Trinity, Asheville, located at 60 Church Street in downtown Asheville. The service will begin at 11 a.m.

At this service, Bishop Taylor, presiding bishop of the diocese of Western North Carolina, will extend an official apology for the diocese’s complicity in the institution of slavery and segregation. All 65 parishes in the diocese will be represented and will offer up their history and relationships related to segregation and slavery.

Efforts to coordinate this service have been ongoing for the past two years under the direction of the Commission to Dismantle Racism, which trained teams from dozens of parishes to lead the “truth and reconciliation” process. Subsequently some have reached out into their communities and begun to build bridges across historic racial divides. Additionally many parishes have started collecting oral histories of racially charged events.

More here-

http://www.mountainx.com/blogwire/2011/katharine_jefferts_schori_preaching_in_asheville