The Forty-Day Journey of Promise
Day Fourteen: Identifying with a Suffering Savior
Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.
The Sin of Slavery and the Slavery to Sin
In the midst of suffering through the ordeal of the sin of slavery, how did God save enslaved people from the slavery of sin?
African Americans often initially resisted Christian conversion because of the apparent contradiction between slave owners’ professed beliefs and their brutal treatment of their slaves. Daniel Alexander Payne explains the inner battle that resulted from such hypocrisy. Born to free parents in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1811, during his ordination in 1839, he describes the testing of faith caused by Christian duplicity.
“The slaves are sensible of the oppression exercised by their masters; and they see these masters on the Lord’s day worshiping in His holy Sanctuary. They hear their masters professing Christianity; they see their masters preaching the Gospel; they hear these masters praying in their families, and they know that oppression and slavery are inconsistent with the Christian religion; therefore they scoff at religion itself—mock their masters, and distrust both the goodness and justice of God. Yes, I have known them even to question His existence.”
Spiritual Reconciliation
If spiritually famished African Americans were going to convert to Christianity, then they had to convert on the basis of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection as revealed in the Bible, not on the basis of Christianity revealed in the lifestyles of the Christians they knew. Ironically, to find redemption in Christ, African Americans had to redeem Christianity as they saw it practiced.
Howard Thurman put it this way.
“By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst.”
Christ’s suffering for humanity’s sin was the key that unlocked their hearts and enlightened their eyes. “Jesus quickly became the ardent personification of the slaves’ own suffering.” Their suffering at the hands of Christians caused them to identify with a suffering Savior who suffered at the hands of religious leaders.
Salvation from Sin, Not from Suffering
At the same time, African American Christians clearly recognized and constantly emphasized the difference between Christ’s sinlessness and their personal need for forgiveness from sin. The recurring theme of the conversion narratives was salvation from sin, not from suffering. Yes, Christ shared with them the experience of unjust suffering. But more importantly, they shared in Christ’s suffering for their sins.
Pastor James W. C. Pennington, reflecting on his conversion, seamlessly expresses his understanding of suffering and of sin. Without minimizing for a moment the evils of slavery, he maximizes for all eternity the horrors of his own enslavement to sin and Satan.
“I was a lost sinner and a slave to Satan; and soon I saw that I must make another escape from another tyrant. I did not by any means forget my fellow-bondmen, of whom I had been sorrowing so deeply, and travailing in spirit so earnestly; but I now saw that while man had been injuring me, I had been offending God; and that unless I ceased to offend him, I could not expect to have his sympathy in my wrongs; and moreover, that I could not be instrumental in eliciting his powerful aid in behalf of those for whom I mourned so deeply.”
Their focus offers an indispensable caution for all soul physicians. While we are called to sustain and heal people in their suffering, if we neglect to address their sinning, if we fail to offer reconciling, then we may enable people to become more self-sufficient sinners. Such one-sided ministry attempts to empower people to live this life more successfully while giving them little incentive to turn to Christ’s resurrection power for eternal life later and abundant life now. We should shudder at the thought.
Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)
1. Hypocritical Christians were a common threat to African American acceptance of Christianity. Of what hypocritical behaviors, attitudes, and styles of relating do Christians in our day need to repent?
2. African American converts understood that they needed Jesus because they were sinners, not simply because they were sufferers. As we present the Gospel today, do we present Jesus primarily as the healer of our hurts, or as the Savior of our sins?
Daniel Alexander Payne
