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    • Two historic Philadelphia churches offer lessons for a divided America today and in its infancy
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    Two historic Philadelphia churches offer lessons for a divided America today and in its infancy

    Harry Posted on

    Luis Andrés Henao
    | Associated Press

    Philadelphia -George Washington. Benjamin Franklin. Betsy Ross. Two Founding Fathers and the tailor of the American flag once worshiped in the centuries-old wooden pews of Christ Church.

    This is where colonial America broke away from the Church of England and where the US Episcopal Church was born.

    Less than a mile south, past Independence Hall, Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church stands on the oldest parcel of land continuously owned by Black Americans. It is the mother church of the country’s first Black denomination.

    Two churches over the centuries. Generations after their birth in the nation first imagined in Philadelphia, both churches continue to serve as spiritual homes for hundreds of people in the city.

    Church members see their congregation’s role as crucial, a guide ahead of a contentious presidential election in Pennsylvania, one of the most swing states. They also express concern about political division, which the Founding Fathers once feared could tear the nation apart.

    “We have grown as a nation, but I think we are at a standstill at this point. We are terribly divided,” said Christ Church parishioner Jeanette Morris. A registered Republican, she previously voted for former President Donald Trump but plans to support Vice President Kamala Harris on Nov. 5 because of her support for reproductive rights. Morris said He is concerned about health issues following the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

    “Nothing gets done in Washington because nobody agrees on anything,” he said after a recent ceremony. “I pray every Sunday that we can get through all of this.”

    The list of today’s divisive issues is long: from abortion to immigration, taxes to climate change, and wars abroad. This is also the first presidential election since the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol; An act of political violence based on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

    “I think some things have changed: Slavery has been abolished. The Civil Rights Act went into effect. But still, residents of the United States haven’t actually been able to come together,” says Keith Matthews, 61, of the Mother Bethel AME congregation. “There is still so much hatred and misunderstanding between races.”

    The nation’s church was at the center of everything

    In its infancy, the United States was also deeply divided. And some members of the Church of Christ, from Washington to the church rector, seemed to be at the center of it all

    “What we are experiencing right now is absolutely politically unprecedented. And there’s a tremendous amount of potential instability and anxiety that many people have in this church and across the United States,” says Zack Biro, executive director of the Christ Church Preservation Trust. “And Christ Church is a perfect example of weathering this storm.”

    The church was founded in 1695 by a group of Philadelphia colonists as the first congregation of the Church of England in Pennsylvania. Later, the congregation included slaves and their owners, loyalists and patriots. They listened to sermons for and against independence.

    Anglican clergy loyal to the English king held weekly prayers for the monarch. But on July 4, 1776, the vestry of the Church of Christ erased the king’s name from the Book of Common Prayer; it was an act that challenged potential treason. The book is preserved today in an underground museum as a testament to the church’s revolutionary spirit on Independence Day.

    “We tend to think of the early American republic as a time of great unity, but like today, the political culture was deeply polarized,” says John Fea, a professor of American history at Messiah University in Pennsylvania.

    In the 1780s, debates raged over how to apply revolutionary-era principles such as liberty or freedom to all Americans, Fea said via email. The church’s rector, the Rev. Jacob Duché, was seen as a moderate from the pulpit and led prayers as the first chaplain of the Continental Congress. But then he sided with the loyalists.

    When the British occupied Philadelphia in 1777, the rector wrote a letter to Washington urging him to surrender and reach an agreement with the British. After the letter was made public, Duché went to England. Pennsylvania authorities later called him a traitor and banned him from re-entry. His successor, the Rev. William White, became the first bishop of the Episcopal Church. He was praised for maintaining the unity of his congregation in times of turmoil.

    Christ Church’s current senior pastor is the Rev. Samantha Vincent-Alexander, the first woman to serve as rector in its more than 300-year history.

    “The idea of ​​what to do and how to deal with this in this political environment right now is an incredible challenge,” he says. “Most of our congregations are not a unified voting bloc. They represent different people, just like in the convention.” It’s time for the American revolution.”

    “We had loyalists and people who supported independence, and the clergy at that time had to find a way to keep the congregation together.”

    Congregations continue to take pride in Christ Church’s important role in America’s freedom. But they also struggle with contradictions. Some church members traded slaves and were buried in the churchyard next to those who signed the Declaration of Independence. Franklin’s grave is in the nearby Christ Church cemetery.

    “While we are proud of our history, these people were not perfect. Sometimes we tend to think of them that way, but they weren’t like that,” says Harvey Bartle, who has been in the congregation for more than 30 years. “What they were doing was trying to promote democracy. … At least they moved the ball beyond the divine right of kings, so that society, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, could advance the system.”

    Absalom Jones, a church member, attended services at a sister congregation while he was a slave to a man serving in church leadership. Jones purchased his freedom and was eventually appointed by the rector of the Church of Christ as the first Black priest of the Episcopal Church. He also founded the Free African Society of Philadelphia, which Fea said “aimed to apply the rights secured by the American Revolution to the 2,000 or so free Black men and women living in the city at the time.”

    Methodism was the fastest growing denomination in America in the 1790s. But some Methodist Episcopal Churches still segregated Black worshipers during services in upstairs galleries. This encouraged free Black Americans to form their own congregations.

    Sister Bethel AME fought for freedom from the beginning

    From its roots, the African Methodist Episcopal Church has been involved in the struggle for freedom and equality.

    Its founder, Reverend Richard Allen, was born into slavery in Philadelphia in 1760 and then purchased his freedom in Delaware before the age of 20. He returned to the city in the 1780s and became a minister.

    After white leaders at a Methodist church segregated Allen, Jones, and other Black worshipers into the upstairs galleries for worship, the group left the church and formed what would eventually become Mother Bethel AME. The church became a place of refuge for Blacks escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad and later an important meeting point for the Civil Rights Movement.

    By creating Mother Bethel, Allen “created a space for Black people to resist during slavery in the Deep South, at a time when Black people could not even come together without a white man among them,” says Allen, pastor of Bethel AME. , Pastor Mark Tyler.

    Today, the AME Church has more than 2.5 million members and thousands of congregations in dozens of countries around the world.

    “Sure, we’ve made progress,” Tyler says, referring to Kamala Harris’ campaign to become the nation’s first Black female president. But he also believes much more needs to be done to bridge racial inequality in America and worries about its potential. He says the AME Church “has not lost its usefulness” with another Trump presidency.

    “The fact that there is a one-time president who has openly embraced white supremacists and who has the potential to become president again in the 21st century is all the evidence you need to know that we still need places where black people can come together.” and let’s organize like the Black Church,” he says.

    At a recent Sunday service, Tyler encouraged his congregation to vote. Some members then evaluated America’s beginnings, progress, and shortcomings.

    “Two things can be said at the same time: They were magnificent in the development of this nation. But they still had the idea of ​​slavery, women weren’t allowed to vote, and that needed to be changed,” parishioner Donna Matthews said of the Founding Fathers.

    “Who are ‘we the people’? “I think people need to ask themselves that,” said Matthews, 63, who attended the service with her husband, Keith, and their young grandson, Ezekiel. “Everyone. And that’s the essence of starting this church.”

    At the end of the service, congregation member Tayza Hill, 25, showed the groups around the church’s museum. The original wooden lectern used by Reverend Allen and Black leaders to address congregations, including abolitionist Frederick Douglass and civil rights pioneer W. E. B. Du Bois, is preserved.

    Hill says he hears the same question on radio shows as the election approaches: “Is the sun rising or setting in democracy?” He remains hopeful and believes the continuity of his church is vital.

    “It’s important to see that a building that has history and is constantly told still exists because it refuses to be erased from history,” Hill says. “It truly behooves us, as a nation and as a church, to defend the rights and dignity of those who are denied the full opportunity of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

    Harry
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