It’s always amazing to me how faith and the Underground Railroad seem to always pop up together in contemporary news articles. For example, in an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about values at religious universities, we get this:

Being different is nothing new for Wheaton. The most famous building on campus was once a way station on the Underground Railroad. That was a time when abolitionist evangelicals were out of touch with the reality of slavery in a nation whose claim to liberty rested on God-given truths about human dignity. Today Wheaton advances a proposition that may be equally radical, at least in the groves of modern academe: That character is as important as chemistry and that teachers have some obligations as role models for their students.

The Santa Barbara Independent interviews Jim Wallis, author of The Great Awakening about the role of faith in major societal changes, such as the abolition of slavery. Wallis argues that there is reason to hope for another Great Awakening that will help change the world because it has happened before:

I almost end up in a pastoral mode where I’m just calling people to choose hope, to side for hope because that’s what faith does in these critical moments. It’s not optimism, it’s a choice and because of faith we choose hope and that’s what changes big things. So it feels to me very, very palpable. The kind of feeling in the air, for example, at Parks Street Church, which is a historic evangelical church in Boston. I knew that but what I didn’t know was that William Lloyd Garrison gave his first abolition speech there when he was 23 years old and that George Whitefield during the first great awakening spoke there and that Charles Finney, my favorite second great awakening evangelist and abolitionist, on weeknights was preaching there, calling people to Jesus Christ and then enlisting them into the anti-slavery campaign. He used the altar call. He used the method of the altar call to sign up his converts for the anti-slavery campaign, and there I was on a weeknight again and the church was just packed with 20 something evangelicals who think they’re new abolitionists now and you can feel the electricity in the room.

While Michael Gerson’s article in The Washington Post is more on politics than faith, he did mention how evangelical youth are fighting against modern slavery:

Those who think of evangelical youths as the training cadre of the religious right would have been shocked at Jubilee 2008, a recent conference of 2,000 college students in Pittsburgh sponsored by the Coalition for Christian Outreach. I was struck by the students’ aggressive idealism — there were booths promoting causes from women’s rights to the fight against modern slavery to environmental protection. Judging from the questions I was pounded with, the students are generally pro-life — but also concerned about poverty and deeply opposed to capital punishment and torture. More than a few came up to me between sessions in anguished uncertainty, unable to consider themselves Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative — homeless in the stark partisanship of American politics.

The Denver Post profiles how two men’s deeply held faith led to a new documentary on slavery and forgiveness.

Since 2004, the Lienau family of Camano Island, Wash., has been traveling the world apologizing for slavery, hoping to repair some of the damage done by the transatlantic slave trade.

Michael Lienau is a filmmaker whose latest documentary, “Yokes and Chains: A Journey to Forgiveness and Freedom,” is about the Lifeline Expedition, a project started in England by a former teacher, David Pott.

The two men share a deep Christian faith and a concern about the impact of slavery on the present.

Lifeline brought together groups of Europeans, Americans and Africans who traveled together staging walks and other events at which they offered apologies for slavery–at a former plantation in Barbados, in a stadium in Gambia, along a path in Virginia where enslaved Africans once were marched from ships.

You can watch a trailer of the film on Google Video.

The University of North Carolina has a “Guide to Religious Content in Slave Narratives” on its “Documenting the American South” web site. In this guide, there are a number of stories about how slaves celebrated Christmas. The narrative of Frederick Douglass shows how the spirit of the holiday season was warped:

A slave who would work during the holidays was thought by his master undeserving of holidays. There was in this simple act of continued work an accusation against slaves, and a slave could not help thinking that if he made three dollars during the holidays he might make three hundred during the year. Not to be drunk during the holidays was disgraceful.

But to the holidays. Judging from my own observation and experience, I believe those holidays were among the most effective means in the hands of slaveholders of keeping down the spirit of insurrection among the slaves.

To enslave men successfully and safely it is necessary to keep their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they are deprived. A certain degree of attainable good must be kept before them. These holidays served the purpose of keeping the minds of the slaves occupied with prospective pleasure within the limits of slavery.

The young man could go wooing, the married man to see his wife, the father and mother to see their children, the industrious and money-loving could make a few dollars, the great wrestler could win laurels, the young people meet and enjoy each other’s society, the drinking man could get plenty of whisky, and the religious man could hold prayer-meetings, preach, pray, and exhort. Before the holidays there were pleasures in prospect; after the holidays they were pleasures of memory, and they served to keep out thoughts and wishes of a more dangerous character.

The Nov. 30 issue of The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a wonderful profile of how, during the Civil War, “In God We Trust” was first considered to be inscribed on United States coins. According to the Journal, on Nov. 13, 1861, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase received a letter from a reverend asking whether future generations would see the United States as a heathen nation.

Moved by the letter, the article says Chase wrote to the director of the Mint in Philadelphia that “no nation can be strong except in the strength of God…[and that]… the trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.” The law calling for “In God We Trust” to be inscribed on U.S. coins was passed by Congress in 1865 (it first appeared on the dollar bill 50 years ago).

Chase was indeed a man of faith inspired to take action. The article credits his faith for driving his early career as an anti-slavery lawyer:

Chase’s relationship and trust in God would put him on a path that would affect both him and the country in the years to come. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Chase became a lawyer. Believing slavery to be a sin, he defended many escaped slaves in his early years of practice in Cincinnati. He tried to argue, for instance, against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 on the grounds that Ohio was admitted to the Union as a free state and not allowed to have slaves based on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Chase eventually gained the nickname “attorney general for runaway Negroes.” He embraced the title (which was intended to be an insult) and went on to fight the institution of slavery while serving first as a U.S. senator and then as the governor of Ohio.

Lee Webb from CBN News profiles the ironic history of a stained glass window of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson in the predominantly African American Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, Virgina. It’s worth reading the entire article and watching the video, but here is a brief excerpt:

The church’s founding pastor Rev. Lylburn Downing designed the window in 1906 to honor Jackson for leading his parents to faith in Christ when they were slave children. Prior to the Civil War, Jackson was a professor at the Virginia Military Institute, and a deacon at the Lexington Presbyterian Church. In 1855, the man who would become one of the Civil War’s most famous generals, began a Sunday school class for black children, slave and free.

Downing’s father and mother were among his many students.How do the members of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church feel about a stained glass window honoring a Confederate general?

Freeland Pendleton, who’s been a member of the church most of his life, says he has no problem with it. “The reason I was okay with it because he had the courage to teach us, teach blacks to read and write,” Pendleton said. “Whether he was fighting for slavery, or whatever, he did do a good thing.”

What lessons can we learn of stories like this?

“I think we like to make history simple,” Miller said. “I think we like to say there are just good guys and bad guys and that depends on which side, who’s the good and who’s the bad.” “It encourages me, especially today when we see our country so divided over so many issues,” Williams said. “It continues to reaffirm and confirm in my mind that Christ is the answer to our problems.”

If you have ever been present for the moment when history happens, you will know what I mean when I report that history happened on the morning of October 23, 2007. Alysa Stanton, ascended the shadowy stairs to the second floor at the Freedom Center, humming a song, looking like an old heavy-set slave, dressed in old rags, and presented herself to an assembly of 300 people, religious administrators from Jewish organizations from all over the country, sitting in front of the Slave Pen.
Ms. Stanton spoke in a Southern dialect, partially intelligible, of the steps she had taken, as her grandmother, to walk from slavery to freedom. The old woman was direct in her recounting of her story of escape and of what it took to start and keep a family alive at those times. Her eyes glistened with tears of memory and hope and she reminded us of what that idea of slavery really meant. “It was a fight, a prayer and a victory,” she seemed to be saying.
Suddenly, she was stepping out of her clothes, pulling some of them over her head, and revealing herself as a young woman, a child in a Micky Mouse t-shirt, and we heard stories of what it was like to grow up as a black child in a Denver neighborhood that had no use for African Americans. Ms. Stanton’s memories was laced with pain as she described being ordered out of her “best friend’s” house by the parent and forbidden to play with this child. “Get out!,” she remembered hearing along with the accompanying shame.
Her brutal words hung over the group and punched their way through the shock of her lifting off her shirt and standing before us in a tailored suit, dark blue with white pinstripes, and recounting the story of being the first African American rabbinical student sent to a small town in northern Michigan for a summer internship. She described in clear tones the filthy and bug infested room she and her young daughter were given and the open loathing of certain members of her congregation. Suddenly, a different voice emerged from Ms. Stanton as she recounted how an older rabbi, who had retired to this town, befriended her and advised her not to quit. “You will learn a lot about yourself, your faith, and your courage, if you stay and let me help you,” the wise adviser told her.
Ms. Stanton continued on in her story and recounted the reality of today, as she approaches the final years of her seminary training. Startling us again, she sang a song of her own composing, “The Jew,” that began: “You are a Jew…I am one too, Please don’t judge me by he color of my skin, please don’t judge me by the womb from which I’ve come, please don’t call me Shiksa or other demeaning names, for I’m a member of your family, I’m a child of Avraham…”
Her song finished to a total silence and then a rousing standing ovation that seemed to go on for several minutes. A great smile was on her face, revealing relief and joy at what she had accomplished. But it was History that was smiling the broad grin of justice, a beautiful justice in which a barrier falls, a new insight is found, hearts are opened and the soul is lifted. No one will forget this experience or know the implications of what we have seen and heard. Ms. Stanton’s song contained a stanza that hinted at what was both changed and changing. She sang: “When you look into my eyes, know that there are others just like me, some are lighter, some are darker too, some have slanted eyes and others look like you. Yet you can reject them. Still they chose to be Jews, like you and like me, Why? Why, can’t you see?”
What happened at the Freedom Center that lovely day, was the turning of a part of a religion toward justice. Why we haven’t seen African American or Asian American Jewish leaders, Jewish teachers, Jewish ministers, is no secret to anyone who understands the role of prejudice in religious history. Religions have been one of the last bastions of segregation, even as laws have fallen in schools, public transportation, and college admissions. The stubbornness of prejudice found strong roots in religious tradition that has only begun to yield to the pressure of young and brave people, like Ms. Stanton. She, like Rosa Parks, refuses to give up her “seat” in a rabbinical seminary. She, like Harriet Tubman, knows that others will follow her path once she has gotten through to graduation. Like Jackie Robinson, she has come to demonstrate her faith as a Jew and as a force of spiritual justice as she “slides toward home.” Others who are religious historians will come to Hebrew Union College to study her efforts to become a rabbi and wonder how she was helped by her fellow students and faculty to achieve her position.
Being “first” in social justice has carried a very heavy penalty for many of those who have been brave enough to stand at the head of the line. Ms. Stanton will have an interesting and important book to write about how her faith brought her through the day to day questioning of her purpose and career choice. And, she will have an important story to live out with her congregations. Already, she has shared the beautiful tale of a southern Alabama congregation that nurtured and welcomed her for a year of great learning and faith.
Her performance at the Freedom Center was a kind of mid-term report from the battleground. There have been achievements that cannot be taken back. There have been unforgettable moments when her vision and courage became the echoes of her family’s vision and courage. When she climbs up whatever remaining steps are left to grasp her degree, her grandmother, parents, siblings, and the community of Jews and other love based faith believers, will stand with her, arm in arm, smiling, crying, and remembering what it is like to step on the Promised Land as the first one. Shalom, Alysa, and thanks.

New York Times reporter, Neil MacFarquhar presents a dramatic new look into the role of sexuality and faith in an article, Muslm Gays find Freedom in US. In a faith tradition where it has been reported that some families have conducted “honor killings” of relatives who are Gay, new scholarship and insights raise the hopes of Gay Muslims that the Koran’s popularly accepted prohibitions against homosexuality are not about being gay but about the “abomination” of sexual dominance. “From the 10th to the 14th century, Muslim society used to be a far richer mix of the legal, the rational and the mystic,” said Rafique, an anthropologist. “They looked at sexuality as one aspect of life’s many possibilities, and they saw in it the hope for spiritual insight. I came across this stuff, an d it helped me reconcile the two.” This new scholarship will certainly open a new discourse on the subject of sexuality and faith.

Jeremy Henzell-Thomas writes about William Wilberforce and the the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade in The American Muslim online magazine. He argues that the abolitionists most successful tactic in changing public opinion was a simple faith-based appeal to the equality of mankind through the image of a kneeling slave with the inscription: “Am I not a Man (or Woman) and A Brother (or Sister)?” This belief in equality, he says, is something that Christians and Muslims share:
In Qur’an 49:13, God advises us that we have been made into nations and tribes so that we may come to know one another and that there is no superiority of one over another except in taqwa, that consciousness and loving awe of God which inspires us to be vigilant and to do what is right. This verse is an implicit condemnation of all racial, national, class or tribal prejudice (’asabiyyah), a condemnation which is made explicit by the Prophet Muhammad: He is not of us who proclaims the cause of tribal partisanship, and he is not of us who fights in the cause of tribal partisanship, and he is not of us who dies in the cause of tribal partisanship. When asked to explain what he meant by tribal partisanship, the Prophet answered, It means helping your own people in an unjust cause.

This verse establishes the brotherhood of man on the broadest foundation. It teaches that God does not judge men or women on their appearance, social standing, wealth, or stated affiliation, whether tribal, national, or religious, nor even on their skill or intelligence, but only on their striving to be faithful to an innate sense of what is true, just, right and good. This is within the reach of every human soul, and not the preserve of any privileged or exclusive group.

The Prophet affirmed to us that All creatures are God’s children, and those dearest to God are the ones who treat His children in the best way.

In 1986, Francis Bok was kidnapped and forced into slavery. FrontPage Magazine has an article on a recent speech he delivered to students at the University of Toronto. Like so many others, Francis credits his faith for helping him survive until free.

For ten long years, Bok told his listeners, he would lie awake at night and wonder who was going to come and free him from this hopeless, helpless life of a slave where he was told he was just an animal. Even his forcible conversion to Islam, outwardly in Bok’s case, did not bring any improvement in treatment. Only his faith in God, the Dinka slave stated, and his desire to see his parents again kept him going.

The BBC online includes several essays and articles exploring faith and slavery. I found the following excerpt interesting and insightful because I’ve always been curious why enslaved people adopted the faith of those who oppressed them:

One of the most common misconceptions about Christianity was that it turned Africans into servile slaves. A more accurate reading suggests that Africans accepted and incorporated aspects of Christianity that were in keeping with their traditional belief systems. Others withstood centuries of slavery and missionary influence to practise traditional beliefs that thrived despite great attempts by the respective authorities to stamp them out.

Adherents to Islam also faced great restrictions on their ability to practise their religion openly. When Non-conformist missionaries stepped up attempts to evangelise Africans during the late 18th century it was noted that the African Muslims still held on to their tendency to pray with their arms open, as opposed to the Christian way with hands clasped.

The Africans who embraced Christianity identified closely with the Bible’s view of freedom, equality and justice and especially drew parallels between their own situation and the Hebrew people in the Book of Exodus. Indeed, such was the potency of this Old Testament story that many clergymen were instructed to avoid it in their Bible lessons. However, for the Africans it demonstrated that God was on the side of the oppressed and would send a Moses to free them. It was ironic that for Africans, the Americas represented the Biblical Egypt or Babylon – a place from which to escape - while for persecuted European Christians it was the Promised Land.