The PC(USA)’s director of advocacy is called ‘a witness to Christ in the halls of power’

The Rev. Jimmie Hawkins is part of Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Just Preach/Just Act series on social justice

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out via Unsplash

LOUISVILLE — As one who wrote the book on the role the Black church has played working to bring about social justice in the United States, the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins was the logical choice Tuesday to complete Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Just Preach/Just Act series. The series began Monday with a sermon by the Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler.

Hawkins, who directs the PC(USA)’s Office of Public Witness and its Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations, was the online guest of Dr. Rodney S. Sadler Jr., who teaches Bible at the seminary and directs its Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation. Last year, Westminster John Knox Press published Hawkins’ first book, “Unbroken and Unbowed: A History of Black Protest in America.”

During his talk, Hawkins traced some of the history of Black church advocacy, including its early embrace of liberation theology. While it’s true many enslaved people at first rejected Christianity, “they rejoiced that God had more to say than, ‘Slaves, be obedient to your masters,’” Hawkins said.

The spirits of enslaved people remained unbroken, Hawkins said, and the spirituals they sang “elicited a means to express what they dared not say outright” with coded messages and other acts of protest. Hawkins briefly traced Black church advocacy through the civil rights movement and up to the present, calling the civil rights movement “the most impactful human rights movement in the history of the United States of America.”

He also spoke briefly on Black women of faith who “put their lives on the line to the same degree as men.” The civil rights movement worked in part because “they often put themselves second” to the needs of others.

Today, he said, “Once again, the Black church is called to be the conscience of the nation. It is time for the Black church to speak to the congregations, and the nation needs to hear us.” The United States, Hawkins said, “is a nation born and nurtured in the spirit of protest, and a continuous thread of Black protest runs throughout history.”

The Rev. Jimmie Hawkins

Nearly every mainline denomination now has a focus on advocacy, Hawkins noted. The PC(USA) has emphasized Jesus’ Judgment of the Nations as recorded in Matthew’s gospel in its Matthew 25 invitation. Along with denominations including The Episcopal Church, the PC(USA) has elected African Americans to lead the denomination, and national staffs at many mainline denominations have become increasingly diverse, Hawkins said.

“God has good news for all people, and especially the poor and dispossessed,” Hawkins said.

It was then time for questions and answers, and Sadler asked the first: Can church leaders sway comfortable people in a way that will lead to systemic change?

“I really believe God’s Spirit is moving,” Hawkins said. He noted the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PC(USA), the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, began the Hands & Feet Initiative to help make a positive impact in cities where the General Assembly was meeting. The most visible was the 2018 march by GA commissioners and others to the Justice Center in St. Louis, where people charged with misdemeanors who couldn’t pay bail were released through funds donated by Presbyterians. Hawkins witnessed the first person released celebrate by throwing his arms around a young woman’s neck.

The people in denominational leadership “provide vision,” Hawkins said.

Sadler said he stood with Hawkins in St. Louis that day. “It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life,” Sadler said. “This really did define a new movement for the church.”

Sadler also asked questions posed by viewers. One noted that even African American congregations have sometimes been captive to protecting what they have “rather than risking their prestige for the sake of the kingdom.”

That’s true, Hawkins said. “White supremacy and racism have impacted everyone.” It’s incumbent upon clergy and church educators “to help people understand what Scripture teaches, and we also have to install a level of courage in our congregations.”

Hawkins said he’s currently researching the impact that Christian nationalism is having on congregations. “The notion that loving God and loving country is equivalent — that is a misunderstanding,” Hawkins said. “We need to be intentional about teaching seminarians how to have difficult conversations,” including whether it’s proper to display the U.S. flag in the sanctuary.

Dr. Rodney S. Sadler Jr.

“We have to go even further,” Sadler replied. “We need to stand for a biblical ethos born in Jesus’ ethic of love, which is born in justice.” While the Bible may be silent on many of the issues of the day, “God does say care for the least of these, the left out, widows and orphans and those who are incarcerated,” Sadler said.

As Reformed theologians, “We don’t brag on our knowledge of God. But we know God is a god of love and of justice, and so we are called to be people of love and justice,” Hawkins said. As churches continue to do ministry outside their buildings while emerging from pandemic limitations, “the church has no boundaries now. We can proclaim the good news all around the world. Advocacy,” Hawkins said, “is a spiritual discipline.”

There’s no conflict, Hawkins said, between churches doing the work of charity and advocacy. “Those are two sides of the same coin,” Hawkins said. “People are hungry right now, and so we have to change laws. People need health care and a living wage right now. We need to end gun violence right now.”

And just as activism around many of these issues is important, so is gender and reproductive justice, Hawkins said. That requires in part support for Black women, “the bedrock of the church,” Hawkins said. “We’ve got to develop programs to protect and help nurture female leadership in the life of the church.”

In response to another question, Hawkins said that while churches of course hope to increase their membership, “the reality is that when you are talking about social justice issues, you are going to be in the minority. I think God is always with the minority, the remnant, the people crying out in the wilderness — so long as we are patient and realistic.”

“Don’t be afraid to stand with a few who are determined to do God’s will,” Hawkins said. “If we put forth all the effort we have, God magnifies it. Someone is listening, and someone is being inspired.”

Ahead of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, Sadler wondered what words Hawkins might have for preachers this Sunday.

“Expose people to King’s words that are more controversial,” Hawkins replied. “Talk about the radical King, who talked about nuclear disarmament” and opposed the war in Viet Nam. “King called America the greatest purveyor of violence around the world, and we still are,” Hawkins said. “Talk about the controversial King and the things he said and did to get into trouble.”

“Thank you,” Sadler told Hawkins, “for being a witness to Christ in the halls of power.”