Benjamin Rush was an abolitionist who helped Richard Allen form a church that started the AME denomination.
By Eddie Hyatt
One of America’s Founding Fathers, Dr. Benjamin Rush, helped launch one of the most successful Black denominations in America today. Rush (1745-1813)was a Philadelphia physician, member of the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence and served as surgeon general during the Revolutionary War at George Washington’s request.
Rush was a passionate abolitionist who helped form the first abolition society in America in his hometown of Philadelphia. He called slavery a “hydra sin” and called on the pastors and minsters of America to take a public stand against it.
He wrote: “But chiefly, ye ministers of the Gospel, whose dominion over the principles and actions of men is so universally acknowledged and felt, ye who estimate the worth of your fellow creatures by their immortality, and therefore must look upon all mankind as equal; let your zeal keep pace with your opportunities to put a stop to slavery. While you enforce the duties of ‘tithe and cumin,’ neglect not the weightier laws of justice and humanity. Slavery is a hydra sin and includes in it every violation of the precepts of the Laws and the Gospels.”
Rush was influential in turning others against slavery, including other Founding Fathers. But his influence went even further. Rush became friends with the former slave and Methodist evangelist, Richard Allen, who settled in Philadelphia after a time of successful evangelistic ministry to both Black and white audiences.
As a Methodist preacher, Allen became a member of the Methodist Church in Philadelphia. However, as the Great Awakening, which had ignited the interracial currents in colonial America, waned, the elders of the Methodist Church in Philadelphia decided to segregate their seating based on race. At this point, Rush and the Black members walked out.
Rush, a Presbyterian, came to the Black congregation’s aid with both moral and financial support. He assisted them in obtaining property and erecting their own church building. They established Bethel Methodist Church, out of which came the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination.
Allen later wrote: “We had waited on Dr. Rush and Mr. Robert Ralston, and told them of our distressing situation. We considered it a blessing that the Lord had put it into our hearts to wait upon those gentlemen. They pitied our situation, and subscribed largely towards the church, and were very friendly towards us and advised us how to go on … .
“Dr. Rush did much for us in public by his influence. I hope the name of Dr. Benjamin Rush and Mr. Robert Ralston will never be forgotten among us. They were the two first gentlemen who espoused the cause of the oppressed and aided us in building the house of the Lord for the poor Africans to worship in. Here was the beginning and rise of the first African church in America.”
Think about it, one of America’s Founding Fathers helped launch one of the largest and most respected Black denominations in America today.
Eddie Hyatt is an evangelical preacher and author. This column is an adapted excerpt from his book, Abolitionist Founding Fathers.
