FATHER’S DAY

CULTURAL RESOURCES

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Bernice Johnson Reagon, Lectionary Team Cultural Resource Commentator

I. Etymology

The keyword that overarches this unit is faith/faithfulness. We now look at its etymology and the corresponding terms associated with it.

“Belief used to mean “trust in God,” while faith meant “loyalty to a person based on promise or duty” (a sense preserved in keep one’s faith, in good (or bad) faith, and in common usage of faithful, faithless, which contain no notion of divinity). But faith, as cognate of L. fides, took on the religious sense beginning in 14c. translations, and belief had by 16c. become limited to “mental acceptance of something as true,” from the religious use in the sense of “things held to be true as a matter of religious doctrine” (early 13c.).

Faith— mid-13c., “duty of fulfilling one’s trust,” from O.Fr. feid, foi “faith, belief, trust, confidence, pledge,” from L. fides “trust, faith, confidence, reliance, credence, belief,” from root of fidere “to trust,” from PIE base bheidh- (cf. Gk. pistis; see bid). For sense evolution, see belief. Theological sense is from late 14c.; religions called faiths since c.1300.

Trust—c.1200, from O.N. traust “help, confidence,” from P.Gmc. traust- (cf. O.Fris. trast, Du. troost “comfort, consolation,” O.H.G. trost “trust, fidelity,” Ger. Trost “comfort, consolation,” Goth. trausti “agreement, alliance”). Related to O.E. treowia n “to believe, trust,” and treowe “faithful, trusty.”¹

II. Memories Sparked by Today’s Scripture

In today’s Scripture (Genesis 22:1-19), God tests the strength of Abraham’s faith. Abraham is told to take Isaac, his only son, and go to a certain place and offer him to God in a burnt offering. As I tried to get inside of this concept of faith, up came the song that was the theme song of the Civil Rights Movement, used in mass meetings, in jails, and in marches and continues to have an international life as a hymn of faith in communities all over the world. We hear this hymn of freedom where people gather to witness in a collective voice for justice and freedom and change.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome

We shall overcome someday
Oh deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome some day

We’ll walk hand in hand…
We are not afraid…
The truth shall set us free…

Right behind that the gospel hymn written by Albert A. Goodson came to me:

We’ve Come This Far by Faith

We’ve come this far by faith
leaning on the Lord.
Trusting in His Holy word
He never failed me yet.
Oh’ Can’t Turn Around
We’ve come this far by faith

Verse:
Just the other day, I heard a man say
He did not believe in God’s word
But I can truly say, the Lord has made a way
He’s never failed me yet

Chorus:
We’ve come this far by faith….²

This gospel hymn was used in church services as a processional song with the choir moving in time, filling the sanctuary with a call to faith-based living and service. The verse of the song indicates that there are those who do not believe, do not have faith, and do not trust in God’s presence, and that hesitating witness is answered with a repeat of the chorus expressing steadfast belief that God will be with the faithful.

This year’s Scripture for Father’s Day also took me back to my childhood and my father, Reverend Jesse Johnson, when he preached from this same scriptural passage. His sermon was basically teaching the Scripture as a narrative with several key points lifted for emphasis. He took as his theme “God Will Provide.” First, God comes to Abraham and tells him to serve Him, that he is to sacrifice his son in a burnt offering.

I still remember sitting in the pews at Mt. Early Baptist Church and seeing in my mind’s eye as father Abraham gathers his son and they began to journey to a mountain where the offering is to take place. Turning the scriptural assignment in my mind, another image quickly came to mind. That is the part that talks about Abraham taking his only son—and I could just hear the older women I grew up with sitting with their arms folded and wondering, “Only son? What happened to Hagar and her baby…?” (But that is another matter for another day.) My father then discussed the position of the son in the text, wondering as he helps to gather wood for the altar, Where is the offering? When the altar is built, as Abraham takes his son, binds him to the altar, and slowly draws back his hand which is wielding a knife, an angel providentially appears and stops him. Abraham looks up and sees a ram which he uses to carry out the burnt offering without sacrificing his son. At this point my father said: “You just step out on God’s word, God will not fail; He will provide!”

III. Faithful Fathers

The song we sang in elementary school morning devotion that had both faith and fathers as key concepts was “Faith of Our Fathers,” living still:

Faith of Our Fathers

Faith of our fathers, living still,
In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
Whenever we hear that glorious Word!
Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death.³

This year’s Father’s Day Lectionary reading concerns fathers and their practice of faith and faithfulness toward their families. As we discuss faith and faithfulness of fathers my guiding concept is: Non-conventional notions. It is important to understand that “fathering” as it relates to the needs of the African American community does not always fit into conventional notions of family (mother, father, two children, and a dog). My family consisted of father, mother, eight children, one or two dogs and cats. On television, the family was white and it did not reflect my family life. My father worked as a carpenter and pastor, four churches, one for each Sunday. My mother worked inside and outside the home. Carrying different loads, I grew up in a home where my parents were partners, with mother and children carrying the heaviest loads of work connected with maintaining the home. Our lives were woven with prayers and songs that expressed powerful notions of faith and trust in a power beyond human capacity.

In this the twenty-first century, we must draw upon the notions of parenting that evolved in our communities where there were not necessarily always two parents (often one had been sold or worse), a mother at home working, father working outside of the home, with the children being assigned formative tasks as soon as they were able to assist. Moving through the twentieth century, even as there was a major effort to hold up family formation as a worthy life goal, there was great slippage. We still have many communities where children are not safe in their daily lives at home, in school, on the street. Many families do not experience the additional support that comes from local church membership or community organizations created to do just that. The notion of communal fathering is urgently needed for our children and must increase as a way to assist home units where there are fathers present, and we must operate as a substitute when there are no fathers in the home. Communal fathering has always been and definitely remains an important resource for our communities and our families.

In this regard, faith is key, because communal fathering requires a deep, long-term, and consistent commitment. We need to have faith that we as church people can make family building and the needs of three generation units (children, parents, grandparents) a primary focus of our work for the twenty-first century. It should be noted that having training or previous experience are not a prerequisite of taking on massive efforts, but seeing the need and believing that God is with you is what is required.

Three Early Philadelphia Community-Building Fathers

It is a reality that sperm/egg unions producing children did not govern or define parenting during our early days on this continent. So many men stepped forward because of an understanding that for a future, African Americans needed a community, and that community needed to create ways to go beyond the contemporary generation. For that to happen there was a need for children to be born and not sold into slavery and there was a need for adults to take up the responsibility of parenting children. There was also a need for the creation of a collective communal home of families that belonged to and was maintained by the families and this was the church and black schools.

Bishop Richard Allen	Robert Purvis	Rev. Absalom Jones

The creation of strong African American communities required a lifetime commitment from men and women of great faith and a capacity for parenting and sacrifice, hard work, and the determination for our people to be self-sufficient and ever moving forward. During the period of the 18^th and 19^th centuries a strong African American community developed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Among the leading fathers of faith and activism were Richard Allen, Robert Purvis, and Absalom Jones. They were fathers of families, creators of new institutions including church denominations and a strong community of free and slave people.

(A) Richard Allen—From Slave to Bishop (1760–1831)

Richard Allen was born in 1760, a slave of Benjamin Chew, the attorney general of Pennsylvania, at his estate “Cliveden,” surrounded by a Black community. Allen became sympathetic to the Methodist faith, which was natural since John Wesley, one of Methodism’s founders, had vigorously attacked the slave trade. In February 1786, Allen came to Philadelphia, and by 1789 had been ordained as the first Black deacon of the Methodist church. He was among those in 1792 who led a walkout of protested separation at the Mother Church in Philadelphia and that led to the formation a new African American church Mother Bethel and in 1816 was a leading founder of the a new African Methodist Episcopal denomination. He was a true father of an African American Christian community.⁴

(B) Robert Purvis—Abolitionist (1810–1898)

Robert Purvis provided leadership to that same Black community in the somber years of struggle with slavery from 1830 until the Civil War. Purvis was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 4, 1810. His father was an Englishman who came to America about 1790 and became a cotton broker. His mother was the daughter of a German-Jewish flour merchant and an African woman who’d been born in Morocco in 1750, spirited into captivity at age twelve, and sold in Charleston. Somehow his African mother achieved freedom and married the Jewish merchant. In 1819, the father of Robert Purvis sent the whole family to Philadelphia. The father died in 1826, leaving an estate of over $120,000. Purvis was privately schooled, then went to Pittsfield Academy and briefly, to Amherst College.

At the age of twenty-three, he was a charter member of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He joined the American Moral Reform Society in 1835 and two years later was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for the formation of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Purvis married Harriet Forten, the daughter of James Forten, herself a strong force in the antislavery movement.

Purvis used all means, both legal and illegal, to combat the enemies of his people. He formed the Vigilant Committee in August 1837, composed mainly of Black men who were pledged to help slaves on their way to Canada. In 1840, he voted along with the majority to have the few remaining whites on that committee removed. When white rioters in 1842 made Purvis’s home a target of their assault, he moved to a country estate outside of Philadelphia where his horse and carriages, and his personal assistant, were ever at the service of underground railroad members. His home was a place where, the abolitionist said “the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest…” Purvis was called “The Father of the Underground Railroad,” and according to William Still, his successor, he could always be counted in, no matter how dangerous the task.⁵

(C) Absalom Jones, a “Singular” Man (1746–1818)

Absalom Jones, also a “founding father” of Black Philadelphia, was born a slave in Delaware in 1746. When he was a child, whites made him wait on their table; earning some money he “bought” himself a primer (reading book from which children learned to read). He declared that reading made him “singular.” When he was eighteen years old, his master sold off his mother, five brothers, and a sister, and Absalom was brought to Philadelphia. In 1785 he was able to purchase his own freedom.

Absalom Jones was forty-six when he became the pastor of St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. He was the strong right arm of Richard Allen, and was present at Allen’s ordination to the bishopric of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. His influence remained local, unlike that of his mentor. He is said to have been a mild, heavy-set, dark-skinned man who often visited the sick. He hated the bondage of his people and warned the whites that if they loved their children they should not burden their heads with slavery.⁶ James Forten, Richard Allen, and Absalom Jones were the fathers of the Philadelphia Black community from its inception through 1830.

You might ask, what do the lives and accomplishments of men like Richard Allen, Robert Purvis, and Absalom Jones have to do with contemporary 21^st century fathers? Well, I recommend these 18^th and 19^th century examples because we in the 21^st century are called to restore in some cases and recreate in others the African American community as the foundational nurturing ground for African American families, and parenting is required for the community and for the children borne into our communities.

Today, it is before us to bring into our communal spaces the children in our communities and father and ground them with parenting and teaching that insist that they can excel no matter what the obstacles. It is crucial to form a vision and then step out and risk all understanding that through faith and a refusal to turn around much can be achieved. This work cannot be effectively done without the presence of fathers being a consistent force in taking on this sacred work.

IV. Some Faithful Twentieth Century Fathers

(A) G. Van Standifer and The Midnight Basket League

“While serving as City Manager of Glen Arden, Maryland, Mr. G. Van Standifer studied police reports that decisively showed that most crime occurred during the hours of 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. and was committed by individuals from a narrow age group (17–25 years old). In response to the escalating crime rate in his town, in June 1986, he established the Midnight Basketball League, Inc. (MBL). Using basketball as the invitation, young men who participated in games had to also participate in other MBL program components to be eligible to play in league games. Mr. Standifer provided workshops and educational opportunities. From the beginning, the MBL Program was a success, embraced and supported by local businesses, law enforcement, and political/community leaders.

MBL’s success in Glen Arden generated national attention. Programs sprang up throughout the United States, from the founding city of Glen Arden to cities such as Chicago, Camden, Cleveland, Atlanta, and San Francisco. After the founder’s death in September 1992, the program continued under the leadership of his sons Eric and Nelson Standifer. Throughout the ‘90s and the turn of the century the program spread to 50 cities nationwide. There was a decline when many cities with changes in local leadership dropped funding of their local program.

(B) The 100 Fathers, Inc.—Ordinary Men Doing Extraordinary Things⁸

Franklyn M. Malone Founder & C.E.O. “Ordinary Men Doing Extraordinary Things”

Mr. Franklyn M. Malone was working in Alexandria, Virginia, with the Northern Virginia Fatherhood Coalition when he recognized that so many of the young men in the surrounding community had no fathers. Many were caught up in a 35–40-year system of welfare reform that did not allow men to be in the house if the family received a welfare check or food stamps—often leaving the house devoid of any adult male role model. Too often the models in the community were drug dealers. “I started the organization to save the children,” said Mr. Malone. He along with Tony Douglas (who created the name 100 Fathers, Inc.) started the outreach program in Washington, DC. “One father equals 100 school masters,” Mr. Malone continued—stating that studies show that children’s grades increase when fathers gets involved in their education and that the same children excel when fathers help with homework. Mr. Malone is also on the board of Y.O.R.M. (Year of Responsible Men, http://2011yorm.com/), an organization geared to increasing the involvement and making more visible male positive role models for children.

Extraordinary Things

The Mission statement of 100 Fathers, Inc.—Ordinary Men Doing Extraordinary Things says in part, “We will address five critical areas:

1. Promoting Health and Wellness;
2. Eliminating violence and inappropriate behavior in our youth;
3. Promoting values and character development;
4. Influencing fathers to increase involvement with their children education; and
5. Leading fathers toward greater involvement with their children and families.”

100 Fathers, Inc.—Ordinary Men Doing Extraordinary Things, are answering the call of so many children, as indicated in the words of the song “Father Me” by Bishop Joseph McCargo:

Father, wrap me in Your arms,
Father, wrap me in Your arms.
Father, wrap me in Your arms
and father me⁹

V. Community Fathers—Two Boy Scout Troops

(A) Boy Scout Troop 107, Steelton, Pennsylvania

Many of our churches have traditionally formed organizations for the youth of their communities. Mr. Eugene Allen wrote the following in 2005 about a Boy Scout Troop and its Scout Master who fathered him and so many others.