Sovereign Grace Bible Conference (African-American), 30th annual . . . August 4-8, 2013 in Chattanooga, Tennessee . . . Elder D. J. Ward, conference founder

Sovereign Grace Bible Conference. Chattanooga, Tenn.

I am set to attend the 30th annual Sovereign Grace Bible Conference, August 4-8, 2013.

The host church (2009- ) is New Home Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

New Home's pastor is Elder G. M. Spotts, one of the many ministerial students of the conference founder, the late Elder D. J. Ward.

I will be attending the annual conference with a budding African-American preacher from my new home church in Louisville, Immanuel Baptist Church. He is a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a graduate of the University of Louisville.

It will be my first time attending the truly unique African-American conference since 2004. I had attended also the 2003 conference that had the then-Minneapolis pastor-author John Piper as one of the 12 or so mix of white and black preachers. This was when the conference was held in Lexington, Kentucky.

I first learned of the Sovereign Grace Bible Conference in the mid-1990s from John G. Reisinger of Sound of Grace ministries. I had become a Christian in October 1992 and soon thereafter a believer in God's sovereign electing grace (Calvinistic/Reformed Baptist theology, especially as it pertains to soteriology, the doctrine of salvation). I had initially learned the Doctrines of Grace (T.U.L.I.P.) through Reisinger's video tapes, as shown to me by friend and spiritual mentor, Daniel R. Green (1947-2006), of Port Angeles, Washington.

John G. Reisinger.
June 2014. Canandaigua, NY.

It was at a Sound of Grace-sponsored John Bunyan Conference in Pennsylvania in April 1995 that I first heard Elder D. J. Ward preach in person. What a blessing! At the time, I was 23-years-old and had just completed my first year of studies at Prairie Bible College in Alberta, Canada.

For the history of the annual Sovereign Grace Bible Conference that began in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, moved to the historic Main Street Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, and is now held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, see here.

And here is the Lexington Herald-Leader obituary for Elder D. J. Ward, and here is the April 29, 2008, online tribute to Elder Ward by Dr. John Piper. Lastly, here is the entire Homegoing and Memorial services for Elder Ward.

UPDATE

Click here to listen to and/or download the sermons and music sessions from the 2013 conference.

Elder D. J. Ward. Conference founder, Sovereign Grace Bible Conference.

New Home Missionary Baptist Church. Chattanooga, Tenn.

Chattanooga, Tennessee. USA.

Uncommon Christian Ministries moves to Louisville, Kentucky . . . Immanuel Baptist Church & Pastor J. Ryan Fullerton

Uncommon Christian Ministries. Est. 2007.

Uncommon Christian Ministries moved this month to Louisville, Kentucky.

Nicknamed Derby City, River City, Possibility City and The Gateway to the South, Louisville is the 27th largest city in the U.S. (pop. 605,000, over 1.2 million in the metropolitan area). The Ohio River separates the historic city (est. 1780) from southern Indiana.

So ends UCM's time in Port Angeles, Washington, and Marysville, Washington.

The pre-Christian, New England (Connecticut) boyhood dream to "Go West, Young Man" was more than fulfilled:

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4.

"No good thing does [the Lord God] withhold from those who walk uprightly (blameless)." Psalm 84:11b.

"Now to [the Lord God] who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us." Eph. 3:20.

After traveling 2,500 miles throught 8 states, UCM's new home church is Louisville's 126-year-old Immanuel Baptist Church.

At Immanuel (est. 1887, spiritually revitalized 2002- ), I am reunited with my longtime friend (1995- ) from Canada's Prairie Bible College, J. Ryan Fullerton. A fine preacher and an uncommon Christian friend to sinners, Ryan serves (2002- ) the growing, 400-member church as her lead pastor.

Situated on the border of the predominantly African-American Smoketown and Shelby Park neighborhoods of Louisville, the Southern Baptist Convention church is in substantial agreement with the theology and ministry philosophy of 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches and The Gospel Coalition.

Many students and some professors from the nearby Southern Baptist Convention-owned and operated Boyce (Bible) College and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary are members of Immanuel.

Founded in 1859 and with Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. as its 9th and current president, SBTS is one of the largest seminaries in the world. Student enrollment is over 2,000 at the flagship school of the six Southern Baptist Convention seminaries in the U.S.

Partly because of its close proximity and cooperative relationship with Boyce College and SBTS, the church has a 3-year Pastoral Apprenticeship program. Over 70 men participated in the program during the 2012-13 school/ministry year.

Like the many churches and Christian ministries based in the centrally-located American city and state of Louisville, Kentucky, so Immanuel likewise serves as a strategic hub for kingdom-advancing activity. After the Bible college and seminary students who are also Immanuel members graduate, many of them scatter throughout the U.S., Canada and other parts of the globe to serve as church deacons and elders, Sunday school teachers, church planters, evangelists, missionaries, pastors and professors.

This fact combines two passions of mine and is the reason I believe Louisville and Immanuel Baptist Church are a good fit for me and the James Brainerd Taylor-inspired evangelism- and discipleship--themed ministry of Uncommon Christian Ministries:

(1) ministering to Christian youth and young adults who are serious about their faith--and, in some cases, are called to the Gospel ministry--and (2) in the context of the local church.

I am not against academics and para-church ministries as I possess a few academic degrees and had a community college campus para-church ministry for nearly 8 years. But it was for the Church that the Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood (Acts 20:28, Eph. 5:25).

--> NOTE: For the history of the church, see A Great People's Church: A History of Immanuel Baptist Church, Louisville, Kentucky, 1887-2005 by David N. Theobald (Lulu Press, 2012). "The history documents how Immanuel was/is impacted by the doctrine and vitality of the nearby Southern Baptist Theological Seminary." For the library holdings of the 125-page book, see here.

Immanuel Baptist Church.
Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

Est. 1887.
Present building (3rd location) built 1905.
Spiritually revitalized 2002-present.

Immanuel Baptist Church.
Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

Recently refurbished sanctuary. 2012.
By Redemption Painting Co.

Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

20th anniversary of baptism (and conversion to Christ) . . . Independent Bible Church, Port Angeles, WA . . . Lake Crescent Lodge, Olympic National Park, WA

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my baptism "in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

It was on Sunday, November 1, 1992, that Pastor Mike Chinn baptized me by water immersion during an evening service at Independent Bible Church (IBC, est. 1888) in Port Angeles, WA. A glorious and life-changing event it was!

Along with one of my heroes--the "uncommon Christian" James Brainerd Taylor (1801-1829)--so I also exclaim with utter amazement, wonder and joy,

Surely I am a miracle of grace—a sinner saved by grace, free grace, sovereign grace, almighty grace.

I am indeed a wonder to myself when I think what I once was, and contrast my former with my present situation and prospects.

Francis Kyle, the baptized. 1992.
Seasonal waiter. 1992-97, 1999-2001.
Lake Crescent Lodge, Olympic National Park, WA.

Pastor Mike Chinn, the baptizer.
With wife Carolyn.

Independent Bible Church. Est. 1888.
Port Angeles, Clallam County, WA.

A simple yet treasured and framed document.
Certificate of Baptism. November 1, 1992.
Independent Bible Church. Port Angeles, WA.

One church's Statement of Faith summarizes baptism like this:

We believe that baptism is an ordinance of the Lord by which those who have repented and come to faith express their union with Christ in His death and resurrection, by being immersed in water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is a sign of belonging to the new people of God, the true Israel, and an emblem of burial and cleansing, signifying death to the old life of unbelief, and purification from the pollution of sin.

Thus, and among other spiritual truths as just mentioned, the baptism 20 years ago today symbolized my being "dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus," and no longer being an "instrument for unrighteousness" but an "instrument for righteousness," per Romans 6:1-14 in the New Testament:

[1] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

[5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. [9] We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. [10] For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. [11] So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

[12] Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. [13] Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. [14] For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

It was a long and spiritually dark 21.5 years that led up to the baptism and surrender/conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ just 1-2 weeks prior in mid-October 1992.

An employee dorm room at historic Lake Crescent Lodge in Washington State's Olympic National Park was the location the Sovereign God chose whereby I would be "born again"/spiritually regenerated (John 3:3, 7; 1 Peter 1:3, 23), repent of my sins and place my faith/trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

At the time, I was a seasonal waiter nearing completion of the first of what would be 9 seasons (1992-97, 1999-2001). Only those bosses, co-workers and returning guests who knew me that first season of employment could truly contrast the "before and after" Francis.

I had grown up in a nominal Roman Catholic home in West Hartford, Connecticut, and was thus some 3,000 miles away from familiar territory at the time of my conversion to biblical Christianity (Evangelical Protestantism) and subsequent baptism.

From leaving Roman Catholicism in October 1989, to reading the Bible cover-to-cover in Connecticut and while traveling/working in 3 western U.S. national park hotel-restaurants (Glacier in Montana, Big Bend in Texas, Olympic in Washington State), to losing a Jewish girlfriend due to a break-up, to attending a "college-and-career" young adult Bible study in the home of an Independent Bible Church elder and his wife (Todd and Noni Huber in Port Angeles), to meeting one-on-one with Pastor Mike Chinn who explained the Gospel to me--the Lord used various Christians and circumstances to bring me to a saving knowledge of Himself.

It has been a marvelous last 19 years of "living by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7).

I am looking forward with eager anticipation and expectation to what my 5th decade of living (began last year/2011)--and now 3rd decade of Christian living--will consist of.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.  Psalm 139:16

NONE but Christ; ALL for Christ.  James Brainerd Taylor

Location of conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ in mid-October 1992.

Employee dorm room (southwest corner).
Lake Crescent Lodge, Olympic National Park, WA.
Room faces U.S. Highway 101, located only a few hundred feet away.

"You must be born again" (John 3:3, 7, New Testament).

Lastly, an instructive sermon on believers baptism is this message from a California pastor who was instrumental in my early spiritual growth as a believer. Be blessed!

Know hope & spiritual awakening, 20th anniversary . . . . new creation in Christ, 17th anniversary

This October and November marks the 20th anniversary of my spiritual awakening to the truth/reality of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It was during the fall of 1989 in West Hartford, Connecticut, that I first experienced the hope--in this life and in the life to come (eternity)--that exists solely in the resurrected Lord Jesus. Prior to that, I was "without hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12).

The source of the hope that directed me to the Lord Jesus was The Holy Bible (Old and New Testaments). The Bible (New International Version [NIV]) was given to me as a gift by a friend. Some specific Bible verses that the Lord used to bring hope to my then-spiritually dark, sin-plagued and meaningless life included the following:

[15] Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [16] For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. [17] The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
1 John 2:15-17

The LORD is my light and my salvation--whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life--of whom shall I be afraid.
Psalm 27:1

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:20b (words of the Lord Jesus)

[14] We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. [15] I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. [16] And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. [17] As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. [18] I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. [19] For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. [20] Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Romans 7:14-20

It was a long 3 years (October 1989 to October 1992, ages 18-21) until I surrendered/gave my life to the Lord Jesus Christ (= was "born again," John 3:3, 7) in a Lake Crescent Lodge employee dorm room near Port Angeles, Washington, in Olympic National Park. I had indeed became a "new creation" in Christ:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

For a full spiritual biography via Uncommon Christian Ministries' website, click here.

For an explanation of the Christian Gospel (literally "good news"), click here.

Israel, Henry H. Halley (1874-1965) and "Halley's Bible Handbook" . . . 17 and 19.5 year desire being fulfilled

One of the reasons for my current and extended 2-year spiritual pilgrimage to and self-study sabbatical in Israel is due, in part, to my reading of Halley's Bible Handbook.

It was this handbook and its pictures of historical/archaeological sites in Israel that spurred my interest in visiting The Holy Land of Israel.

At the time of purchasing the 24th edition (1965) of the handbook in 1989 or 1990, I was 18- or 19-years-old and not yet a Christian. I purchased it soon after I began reading the Bible seriously in October 1989.

From October 1989 (West Hartford, Connecticut) to my conversion to Christ in October 1992 (Lake Crescent Lodge employee dorm room in Olympic National Park near Port Angeles, Washington), I was a self-student of the Bible. (For the full story of my conversion to Evangelical Protestant Christianity, click here.)

For 10 days in late December 2005/early January 2006, and now for 2 years from May 2009 to July 2011, my desire to see in-person the historical sites of the Bible in Israel is being fulfilled. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4).

Zondervan, the current publisher of the handbook (25th edition), states,

Halley's Bible Handbook, the classic layperson's companion text, includes a concise Bible commentary, important discoveries in archaeology, related historical data, church history, maps, and more. . . .

Halley's Bible Handbook was born out of the conviction of Henry H. Halley that everyone ought to read the Bible daily.

From its first edition, a small give-away booklet of 16 pages, it has grown into an 864-page "almanac" of biblical information, used regularly by hundreds of thousands of laymen, teachers, and ministers. Halley's Bible Handbook contains more biblical information than any other book of its size.

It has been a continuous best-seller through the years and has sold more than five million copies in many languages.

Elsewhere, Zondervan writes,

Now in full color, the twenty-fifth edition of Halley’s Bible Handbook provides time-tested help for understanding the Bible—not just with the mind, but also with the heart. It includes a concise Bible commentary, important discoveries in archaeology, related historical data, church history, maps, and more.

Clear. Simple. Easy to read. Now in full color for its twenty-fifth edition, this world-renowned Bible handbook is treasured by generations of Bible readers for its clarity, insight, and usefulness.

Halley’s Bible Handbook makes the Bible’s wisdom and message accessible. You will develop an appreciation for the cultural, religious, and geographic settings in which the story of the Bible unfolds. You will see how its different themes fit together in a remarkable way. And you will see the heart of God and the person of Jesus Christ revealed from Genesis to Revelation.

Written for both mind and heart, this expanded edition of Halley’s Bible Handbook retains Dr. Halley’s highly personal style.

It features brilliant maps, photographs, and illustrations; contemporary four-color design; Bible references in the easy-to-read, bestselling New International Version; practical Bible reading programs; helpful tips for Bible study; fascinating archaeological information; easy-to-understand sections on how we got the Bible and on church history; and improved indexes.

For a biography on the Kentucky-born Protestant (Disciples of Christ) minister and author, Henry H. Halley (1874-1965), click here.

Halley's Bible Handbook, 25th Edition is available through its publisher (Zondervan), at Christian Book Distributors (CBD) or Amazon.com.

It is worth noting that Dr. Halley developed a fondness for memorizing favorite passages of the Bible until he could recite from memory entire books from the Bible, in abridged, connected form and in their own words. Some have suggested that at any one time Dr. Halley could quote in excess of no less than 25 continuous hours worth of Scripture without looking at a reference. According to Dr. Halley, "The Bible is the most precious possession of the human race."


Elder D. J. Ward & Main Street Baptist Church (Lexington, Kentucky)

Interestingly, Dr. Halley is buried near where a favorite preacher of mine ministered.

Kentucky's historic Lexington Cemetery (est. 1849, 833 West Main St.) is just up the street from where the late Elder D. J. Ward pastored (1989-2008), namely, the historic Main Street Baptist Church (est. 1862, the first African-American Baptist church in Lexington, 582 West Main Street).

Up until 2009 (when it moved to New Home Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tenn.), Main Street Baptist Church was home to the annual Sovereign Grace Bible Conference. The conference was founded in 1983 by Elder Ward who was, at the time, pastoring in Oak Ridge, Tenn. I have attended this African-American conference twice, in 2003 and 2004 (and then again in 2013).

Click here for the location of Dr. Halley's burial site in Lexington, Kentucky.

John Calvin, 500th birthday + Calvinism and evangelist James Brainerd Taylor + thanks to John Reisinger and Dan Green

July 10, 2009, was the 500th anniversary of the birth of the influential French theologian and pastor, John Calvin. Conferences throughout the world are being held this year in honor of the Geneva, Switzerland-based Protestant reformer. Included among the conferences was a major, multi-day one at Geneva's St. Pierre Cathedral ("Calvin 500: A Quincentenary"). If I was not in Israel this year, I would have attended this July conference.

Also, many newspaper, magazine and journal articles and blog posts about Calvin and the resurgent Calvinistic theology in the U.S., Canada and abroad are being published and posted in 2009, including "Calvin's theology still shapes churches" (Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky., July 10, 2009).

In Time magazine's "What's Next 2009: 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now," "The New Calvinism" ranked third. A good resource regarding "The New Calvinism" is Colin Hansen's Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists (Crossway, 2008).

Though there is no evidence that James Brainerd Taylor read Calvin's popular Institutes of the Christian Religion or his other works, the American evangelist Taylor (1801-1829) was a Calvinist of the Jonathan Edwards variety. I argue this in chapter two my first book An Uncommon Christian: James Brainerd Taylor, Forgotten Evangelist in America's Second Great Awakening (University Press of America, Jan. 2008). Comments such as this reveal Taylor's Calvinistic theology:

Surely I am a miracle of grace--a sinner saved by grace, free grace, sovereign grace, almighty grace.

Regarding Calvin's impact upon my own life and theology, I thank the Reformed Baptist theologian-pastor-evangelist John G. Reisinger (Sound of Grace ministries) for introducing me to Calvinism's TULIP theology soon after my conversion to Christ in October 1992. It was in the Port Angeles, Washington home of my late friend and mentor Daniel "Danny" R. Green (1947-2006) that I viewed Reisinger's excellent and instructive videos on TULIP (Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistable Grace, Perseverance of the Saints).

Other key theologians, pastors and authors--both dead and alive--whom the Lord has used to instruct me in the doctrinal truths of Calvinism/Sovereign Grace/The Doctrines of Grace have been the 16th and 17th-century Puritans, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), George Whitefield (1714-1770), Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), A. W. Pink (1886-1952), James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000), Elder D. J. Ward (died 2008, obituary), Richard Belcher, J. I. Packer, John Piper, R. C. Sproul and Mark Webb.

The Calvinism-based Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) and the London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) have been especially instructive in teaching me that the "only true God" of the Bible (John 17:3) is a sovereign God who extends His free grace to undeserving sinners.

James Brainerd Taylor in the Sequim Gazette

"Author plans 10-book series on 19th-century evangelist" is the title of journalist Matthew Nash's article in the May 20, 2009 issue of the weekly Sequim Gazette (Sequim, Washington). Click here to read the online version of the article.

This local article is in addition to other local media coverage on the recently rediscoverd James Brainerd Taylor (1801-1829) in the Peninsula Daily News and on "The Todd Ortloff Show" on KONP Newsradio (both based in Port Angeles, Washington). The two J. B. Taylor books (January 2008 and June 2008, University Press of America) have also received regional and national attention--see various blog posts below.

Uncommon Christianity in Israel? . . . farewell Port Angeles, Washington

Is there Uncommon Christianity in Israel? I'll soon find out as I leave for Israel tomorrow (Thursday, May 7, 2009) to participate in two volunteer endeavors. This is my second visit to The Holy Land, the first being for 10 days in late December 2005/early January 2006.

Click here for my contact information in Israel. And click here to see the recommended links for Israel on UCM's web site.

From May 10-28, I'll be volunteering with the Jewish-based Sar-El (est. 1982, called Volunteers For Israel [VFI] in the U.S.). VFI's mission “is to connect Americans to Israel through volunteer service. They achieve this goal by partnering with military and civilian organizations that enable volunteers to work side-by-side with Israelis. They promote solidarity and good will among Israelis, American Jews and other friends of Israel.”

Then, after a 10-day vacation to roam the land and beginning around June 8, I'll be volunteering for 1-2 years at Christ Church Guest House in Jerusalem's Old City. Completed in 1849, the Anglican-run Christ Church is the oldest Protestant Church in the Middle East. It was formed by The Church's Ministry among the Jews (CMJ, est. 1809), originally called the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. "Started in London by visionaries such as William Wilberforce (1759-1833), Charles Simeon (1759-1836) and [later] Lord Shaftesbury to share the Gospel with Jewish people, CMJ now has a worldwide ministry to share with Jewish people our belief that not only is Jesus (Yeshua) the Saviour of the world, he is the Jewish Messiah. Today [their] main work is in Israel but [they] retain a vibrant ministry in the U.K." So states the CMJ-U.K. website.
--> NOTE: CMJ is celebrating its bicentennial with events throughout 2009 in the U.K., U.S. and Israel. For the celebrations in the U.K., click here. Kelvin Crombie's latest book entitled Restoring Israel: 200 Years of the CMJ Story (Nicolayson's Ltd., Christ Church Jersualem, 2008) is highly recommended.

Also while in Israel--and as time allows--I'll be participating in the cultural exchange and hospitality-based Servas International (est. 1949, originally called Peacebuilders). I'm one of the over 20,000 Servas members who come from over 125 countries. Servas Israel has more than 300 individuals, couples and families willing to host Servas members for free. Click here to view a map of Israel that shows the areas with Servas hosts.
--> NOTE: Servas International has consultative status as a non-governmental organization (NGO) with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, currently with representation at many of the UN's hubs of activity.

Among other options, the "uncommon Christian" James Brainerd Taylor (1801-1829) considered ministry among the Jewish people in Palestine before his untimely death while a student at Yale Seminary in 1829. Taylor's reading of the Memoir of Levi Parsons (1824) no doubt inspired his interest.

Before settling down in Israel, a special THANKS to those in Port Angeles, Washington, who extended to me their kind farewell wishes and gifts during the weeks and days prior to my departure (today/May 6). Among other entities, it was sad to say goodbye to the Peninsula College Christian Student Fellowship. I served as the founding advisor for PCCSF, 2002-09.

James Brainerd Taylor on the radio . . . book presentations

The two recent James Brainerd Taylor books--An Uncommon Christian and Of Intense Brightness (University Press of America, 2008)--were the topic of discussion during a portion of the March 26 "Todd Ortloff Show" on the Port Angeles, Washington-based KONP News Radio. To listen to the 17-minute interview, click here and go to "Archived Programs--Todd Ortloff Show--3/26/09--Local Biographer." NOTE: the downloadable interview begins at 17:44 and ends at 38:02. Or contact UCM and request the free MP3 audio file.

Sponsored by Uncommon Christian Ministries, 2 upcoming book presenations and signings include the following:

Sunday, April 5, 2009

6:00 p.m.

First United Methodist Church, Port Angeles, Wash.

Wednseday, April 15, 2009

Noon

ASC Conference Room, Peninsula College, Port Angeles, Wash.

--> Co-sponsored by Peninsula College Christian Student Fellowship

These two book presentations and signings are in addition to the 7 presentations or book-related sermons done already:

+ 3/7/09 -- Evangelical Theological Society, Northwestern Regional Annual Meeting, George Fox Evangelical Seminary, Portland, Ore.

+ 1/25/09 -- Quilcene Bible Church, Quilcene, Wash.

+ 11/20/08 -- Evangelical Theological Society, 60th Annual National Meeting, Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, R.I.

+ 8/10/08 -- Lusk Alliance Church, Lusk, Wyo.

+ 7/6/08 -- Calvary Grace Church, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

+ 3/15/08 -- Evangelical Theological Society, Northwestern Regional Annual Meeting, Western Seminary, Portland, Ore.

+ 3/14/08 -- Worldview Center: Institute for International Christian Communication, Portland, Ore.

NOTE: Today (March 29, 2009) marks the 180th anniversary of J. B. Taylor's death.

Ed King and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement . . . James Brainerd Taylor and slavery . . . James Brainerd Taylor Marsh and Fisk Jubilee Singers

Woolworth sit-in and Rev. Ed King (standing).
Jackson, Mississippi. May 28, 1963.
50th anniversary on May 28, 2013. 

Pictured to the left (standing, with the clerical collar) is the Rev. Ed King. 

Then a chaplain at the historic and all-black Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. Rev. King is assisting students during the historic Woolworth sit-in on May 28, 1963, in Jackson. The sit-in was the most violent--racist white police towards black students and white sympathizers--of all the 1960's sit-ins, and the most publicized.

At my invitation, the now 72-year-old Rev. King was the featured speaker for the Peninsula College Christian Student Fellowship's fourth annual tribute to National African-American History Month, February 26 to March 1. I serve as the founding advisor for PCCSF (est. 2002), an official student club at Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Clallam County, Washington. 

The college's Associated Student Council (student body government)-operated Sound of Unity and Magic of Cinema film series co-sponsored Rev. King's coming.

Click here to read the press release of Rev. King's visit that was printed in the Sequim Gazette. Special thanks to Riski Business Photographics in Port Angeles for the above March 1, 2009, photo of Rev. King and me.

Rev. Ed King and Dr. Francis Kyle.
Port Angeles, Washington. March 1, 2009.

This was Ed's second visit to Port Angeles.

Shortly after meeting him while on his 3-hour civil rights history tour in Jackson in late May 2005, I invited Ed to speak in Port Angeles on August 14, 2005. He was well received by the local community and media.

To listen to a 25-minute live radio interview with Ed and me on "The Todd Ortloff Show" (KONP News Radio, Port Angeles, Wash.), click here to request the free MP3 audio file. Or, contact KONP directly.

For a front page photo and story on Rev. King's Port Angeles visit in the April 2009 issue (Issue #22) of Channels, click here (online PDF screen version). Channels is the monthly newsletter of the United Methodist Church's Pacific Northwest Conference.

Additionally, click here (PDF print version, see page 6) to read an article in the March 18, 2009, issue (vol. 62, no. 12) of the Mississippi United Methodist Advocate.

Here is what others have said about the Rev. Ed King:

+ "Dr. (Martin Luther) King got the headlines, the awards and the adulation, but the Ed Kings did the daily dirty work so essential to the movement's many successes."

--> Davis Houck and David E. Dixon, eds., Rhetoric, Religion and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965 (Baylor University Press, 2006)

+ "Ed King risked everything, and lost much, for the civil rights movement. He has unique insights and an insider's perspective. He has paid his dues and more over many years. His life gives witness to the immense worth of speaking courageously and truthfully to ruthless power. Ed King is a hero, a worthy subject for a biographer."

--> An anonymous 1/19/07 comment to a 10/30/03 biographical article about Rev. King in the Jackson Free Press

+ "church reformer, theological prankster, pastor of his 'movement congregation' . . . renegade Methodist minister"

--> Charles Marsh, God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (Princeton University Press, 1997)

Regarding the leaders of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, here is what Rev. King said during a February 27, 2002, lecture at the Bonhoeffer House, part of Charles Marsh's Theological Horizons: Christians Engaged In Ideas and Actions. King's talk was titled "Religion and the Civil Rights Movement" (click here for the lecture's full manuscript via the University of Virginia's Project on Lived Theology):

The leadership in the black civil rights movement I would say was disproportionately Methodist, certainly was heavily Protestant, and that is obvious. The very top leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-1968] may have been Baptist, and he had splits with the black Baptist denominations, but in most of the communities that I know about, the key people who were ready first were black Methodist women. And the Methodist church had a tradition in this country of social concerns, but a deeper tradition that a born again life was a life of citizenship [social responsibility] as well as a life of salvation. And you just didn't make those distinctions [between the eternal and temporal].

UPDATE - August 2012

Some lifetime achievement recognition
for Rev. Ed King, 2010-12

Rev. King was the 2011 Alumnus of the Year at Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss. The now 74-year-old King earned a B.A. in sociology in 1958. The summer 2011 issue (pages 55-57) of the Millsaps Magazine feature this honor for King.

In 2010, the Millsaps College Leader of Values and Ethics (LOVE) award was renamed in honor of King. The award "is bestowed on the student leader who best exemplifies principled leadership for a cause of deep moral consequences that may meet with opposition but proves over time to be true." On February 5, 2011, Millsap's Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority sponsored a "Living Legacies Ball" in honor of King to raise funds to endow the Rev. Ed King LOVE award.

Boston University's School of Theology honored King with their Alumnus of the Year award for 2010.

The longtime home church of Rev. King, Galloway United Methodist Church in Jackson, Miss., honored King at a special service on May 29, 2011.

National Civil Rights Museum.
Est. 1991. Memphis, Tennessee.

Under the category of Icon of the Civil Rights Movement, Rev. King was one of several distinguished recipients of the 2011 Freedom Awards given by the National Civil Rights Museum. Other recipients included basketball legend Bill Russell, former professional basketball player Alonzo Mourning and actor and activist Danny Glover. The November 12, 2011, ceremony was held in Memphis, Tennessee, and not far from the museum's location at the historic Lorraine Motel, the place where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The year 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the museum.

With actor Daniel T. Parker playing the Rev. Ed King, the world premier of the theatrical performance "All The Way" ran July 25 to November 3, 2012, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (est. 1935) in Ashland, Oregon. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Richard Schenkkan's vivid dramatization of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's first year in office (1963-64), "means versus ends plays out on a broad stage canvas as politicians and civil rights leaders plot strategy and wage war." After its world premier in Oregon, the play most likely will appear in other major U.S. cities in 2013 and beyond. (UPDATE: Click here to read the New York Times review [September 25, 2013] of the showing of "All the Way" at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.)

--> With family members, Ed King watched the play in-person on August 8, 2012. He also spoke with the man who played him, Daniel T. Parker, as well as all the other performers in the play. In a separate meeting in Seattle on August 13, Rev. King also spoke with the play's author Richard Schenkkan.

Dr. Francis Kyle and Rev. Ed King.
Camano Island, Washington. August 10, 2012.

YouTube video. 76 minutes. 

"A White Southerner in the Civil Rights Movement:

The Rev. Ed King Story"

Guest lecturer Rev. Ed King at the University of Virginia. 

For Prof. Charles Marsh's "Kingdom of God in America" class. 

October 24, 2013.

James Brainerd Taylor (1801-1829) . . . uncommon Christian and friend to African slaves

Writing on Sunday, July 12, 1823, the American James Brainerd Taylor wrote the following in his journal while a student at the Lawrenceville Academy (5 miles south of Princeton, N.J.),

Spoke to the colored people this p.m. "Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God" [Psalm 68:31]. How they are degraded and frowned upon by white people! My very soul pities their condition, both in this country and in Africa.

*Memoir of James Brainerd Taylor, 2nd ed. (NY: American Tract Society, 1833), page 150

An Uncommon Christian:
James Brainerd Taylor (1801-
1829) by Dr. Francis Kyle.
University Press of America. 2008.

In addition to his starting a Sunday school for Africans in Lawrenceville, N.J., Taylor also interacted with slaves during his time in New York City and during his travels in the Southern states of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.

While a late teen in New York City, the "uncommon Christian" served as a teacher and assistant superintendent at one of America's earliest Sunday schools for African slaves. New York Sunday School Union No. 34 was founded by Taylor's older brother, Jeremiah H. Taylor. It met at St. George's Episcopal Church (now called Calvary-St. George's and located in Manhattan near Stuyvesant Square and Gramercy Park).

"It mattered nothing with Mr. Taylor what was the condition or the color of the saint," wrote the Memoir's Southern Presbyterian co-compilers, John Holt Rice and Benjamin Holt Rice. (Memoir, 438.)

James Brainerd Taylor Marsh (1839-1887) . . . abolitionist and manager of the 1870's Fisk Jubilee Singers

Relatedly, James Brainerd Taylor Marsh was a white abolitionist, successful newspaper editor, mayor of the Ohio town of Oberlin (1878-81), member of the Oberlin College Class of 1862, and manager of the famed Fisk Jubilee Singers, the 1870's international traveling group of the African-American Fisk University (est. 1866) in Nashville, Tenn.

"Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory."
 1999.

J. B. T. Marsh helped to make the Fisk Jubilee Singers famous with his book The Story of the Jubilee Singers; with Their Songs (1881). Marsh wrote the book while traveling with the singers in Europe and elsewhere.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers still sing today.

"Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory" ("former slaves sing their way into the nation's heart") is a documentary film produced by America's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1999.

Note: It was common in 19th-century America for Christians to name their child in honor of popular pastors, evangelists and missionaries. Like J. B. Taylor (Middle Haddam), so J. B. T. Marsh (New Milford) was also born in Connecticut. At the time in the mid-1800s, and via his two published memoirs (1833, 1838), J. B. Taylor was at the height of his fame in the U.S. and U.K.