Friday, July 7, 2023

It is the 7th of July, 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Students of the 19th century and the abolitionist movement are likely aware of the famous Grimke sisters- Sarah and Angelina were two of the first famous female speakers and were abolitionists in the north, born to a rather notorious slaveholding Judge of a father in South Carolina.

They were 2 of 14 Grimke children- one of their brothers, Henry, stayed in South Carolina, where he was a slave owner in Cane Acres on a rice plantation. Henry had children with a wife who died. He then took a slave, Nancy Weston as a mistress and fathered 3 sons. One of his sons, Francis- or Frank- is the subject of today’s show. At the same time, his mother lived as a wife to his father, Henry. Henry died when Frank was 2 years old. Henry willed Nancy and the boys to his son, Montague. At first, Montague allowed Nancy and the boys to live apart from him, and Nancy washed clothes, and the boys helped. But when Montague married the daughter of a slaveholder, she expected Montague to give her slaves for her personal use. When Frank was 10 and his older brother was 12, they were taken into Montague’s house, where they would be beaten and sold to another man who also beat them. At just 10 years old, Francis tried to escape and was caught, beaten, and put in prison.

After the civil war and emancipation, Francis attended a freedman school where he showed enough promise to be sent north to Lincoln College- the first degree-granting HBCU in the United States. In the late 1860s, his brother, Archibald, had gone to Lincoln with his brother and then went to Harvard. After giving a speech that was published, Angelina Grimke recognized the name and tracked him down. Learning that they were related (the boys being their nephews), they had the boys- now young men- move in with them and assisted them in their education.

Francis attended Harvard and Howard University in DC before deciding that his call would be to ministry. He went to Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was noted by Charles Hodge- the giant in Reformed theology- as an especially able student. Francis would graduate, and it was on this, the 7th of July in 1878, that Francis was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. He would become a pastor at 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington DC, a post he would hold for 50 years, becoming one of the prominent voices in both the African American community but also in the Christian community. During Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era, he called for nothing short of full suffrage based on being created in the image of God.

He would be a trustee at Howard and would help form the NAACP with W.E.B Dubois. He officiated the wedding of Frederick Douglass at 15th Street Pres and was in contact with a number of American presidents who sought his advice on race relations.

He and Booker T. Washington were friends, but Grimke thought Washington was too ready to accommodate the segregationists. When the PCUSA made an overture to merge with the old Cumberland church, it was Grimke who loudly objected as the Cumberland church was still segregated.

Grimke was known for his preaching- members of Congress and the Supreme Court would head to 15th St. to hear him preach. He was as vocal in his denunciation of racism as he was in proclaiming the Gospel. He believed his call was to pronounce the absolute need for grace and its free offer in Jesus. In an age when some tended to either activism or the work of a pastor Frank Grimke united the two- causing him, unfortunately, to fit neither mold and be lost for some time to history.

His Meditations on Preaching was published in 2018, and in 2020 a sermon he gave during the so-called Spanish Flu circulated online, but there is to this day no standard biography of the remarkable preacher, pastor, former slave, and civil rights activist- Francis Grimke whom we remember on the anniversary of his ordination by the Presbyterian Church on this day in 1878.

The last word for today comes from Grimke- two quotes I find pertinent, hopeful, and with a whisper of the great EGBOK:

I place my hope not on government, not on political parties, but on faith in the power of the religion of Jesus Christ to conquer all prejudices to break down all walls of separation, and to weld together men of all races in one great brotherhood.”

“Because God reigns, there is hope for the oppressed, for the downtrodden, for all upon whose necks the iron heel of oppression rests.  There need be no fear as to the final assault, as to the final issue.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 7th of July 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite Franks include Grimke, Drebin from The Naked Gun, Grimes from the Simpsons, and what he calls a hot dog.  He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who believes the Hot Dog is indeed a sandwich as it is bread and meat that can be eaten in one hand whilst playing cards. I’m Dan van Voorhis .

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.