The Lived Theology and Power Workgroup
Meeting Highlights
- First Meeting
Charlottesville, VA
January 25-27, 2002 - Second Meeting
New York, NY
April 19-21, 2002 - Third Meeting
Montgomery, AL
September 6-8, 2002 - Fourth Meeting
Charlottesville, VA
February 14-16, 2003
Third Meeting
Montgomery, AL
September 6-8, 2002
Narrative
The workgroup met for the third time in Montgomery, Alabama. With M. Shawn Copeland and Mark Gornik unable to attend, Susan Glisson, civil rights scholar and activist, joined the group. Richard Wills, former pastor of Dexter, and Ralph Luker, a respected scholar of King and the Civil Rights Movement, also joined the group as consultants.
Friday saw the group discussing two presentations. The first "King in Montgomery: Theology, Power and Social Progress" from Charles Marsh set the focus for the weekend firmly on the events of the bus boycott. King's claim that if the return to the busses following their desegregation was not in the spirit of humility then the whole boycott would have failed, prompted consideration of the nature of Christian protest. The second presentation by Ted Ownby examined types of white Southern pro-segregation arguments and Will Cambell's response in his life and work as presented in his book Brother to a Dragon Fly. The group noted the conflict between Cambell's distrust of any institution and the need for organization in effecting social change.
Saturday morning saw the group meeting at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Dexter, a modest sized red brick church and King's first pastorate, proved a provocative place for the group to consider issues of power. Set in the midst of gleaming white state and federal government buildings, Dexter's architecture and placement embodies the contestation of power that occurred there 46 years ago. Rev. Michael F. Thurman, the present pastor of Dexter, welcomed the group, gave them a tour of the church including the astonishing mural of King and the civil rights movement in the basement, and then led a short devotion. Meeting in the sanctuary of Dexter the group heard Houston Roberson present his work on Robert Chapman Judkins, pastor at Dexter from 1905 to 1916. Dexter's social activism and organizing to improve the condition of Montgomery's black citizens stretches back long before Kings arrival in 1954.
The highlight of the weekend came on Saturday afternoon with a conversation with Fred Gray, the attorney who defended Rosa Park and the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), and Johnnie Carr, activist from the boycott and president of MIA from1968. Both Carr and Gray talked of the religious convictions underpinning their actions. Gray described the significant factors leading to the boycott as clearly the work of God's providence. Carr made the statement that it was only through the grace of God that the movement had come so far. This remark would prove to be the starting point for fruitful discussion the following day. Following the meeting with these two civil rights veterans the group toured civil rights sites in Montgomery including Dexter's parsonage and First Baptist church where so many of the mass meetings took place. Ralph Luker rounded the day off with his paper "Quoting, Merging and Sampling the Dream: Vernon Johns and Martin Luther King."
Meeting on the Sunday morning, the group wrestled with the question of how a historian could engage with Johnnie Carr's conviction that it was the grace of God behind the actions and success of the movement. Luker pointed to the complexity and mystery behind such a task pointing out that the desegregation of the busses came without any of the boycotters' original demands being met, and arguably it being the court cases rather than the boycott itself that won this victory. McCaharrer laid out the limitations of the contemporary historian's tools leaving the group to struggle with the possibilities for a new scholarship. The group then attended the service at Dexter Avenue, hearing a sermon on Saul and David and God's intervention in history choosing the unlikely and reluctant to effect change and unseat the powerful.
Readings
Readings from Charles Marsh:
- Berkhof, Hendrik. Christ and the Powers. John Howard Yoder, trans. & ed. Scottsdale, PA.: Herald Press, 1977.
- Carson, Clayborne, sen. ed., "Volume III: Birth of a New Age", The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997.
- Chomsky, Noam. Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. New York: The New Press, 2002.
- Perkins, John. A Quiet Revolution. Waco: Word Inc., 1976.
Readings from Ted Ownby:
- Cambell, Will D. Brother to a Dragonfly (25th Anniversary Edition). New York: Continuum, 2001.
- Ownby, Ted. "Donald Wildmon and Theology." Unpublished paper, University of Mississippi, 2002.
Readings from Houston Roberson:
- Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.
Papers/Presentations
- Ted Ownby (33k, doc): Untitled paper