By Hamil R. Harris
Forward Times
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News
https://www.forwardtimes.com/
African American faith leaders across the country are raising their voices in response to the results of the 2024 election with a mix of feelings in terms of how they are ministering to their members, many of whom, were deeply disappointed by the defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris by former President Donald Trump, now President-elect again.
“It’s bigger than the White House. Our God is bigger and [this is the] time that we need to lean into our faith that was taught by our ancestors who never wavered. We also must build bridges that we have never built, across political lines that we have not built, across racial lines that we have not built so we are not feeling any ways tired today,” says Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, coordinator of a ten-state nonpartisan, multi-racial, interfaith, and multi-generation group called Faiths United to Save Democracy. She is also founder of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Prayer Breakfast and author of the book, “I Prayed, Now What?”
Skinner adds, “The massive disappointment that many feel now about the wrong direction for America must be put in the context of our faith.”
Bishop Jamal Harrison Bryant is pastor of the New Birth Baptist Church in Atlanta, where an intense push to get out the vote took place as Georgia was a battleground state, meaning it could go either Republican or Democratic. Bryant said he saw the election as a wakeup call to continue teaching on crucial issues from the pulpit.
“The sobering reality is that ministry goes on after the election. The church has to remain vigilant all year and so the fight for equality remains intact,” Bryant concluded. “The Bible says that people die for the lack of knowledge, and it is my responsibility to educate people on the issues at stake.”
Parishioners must be taught not to stand still, but to press on by remaining politically active on issues, says Rev. Tony Lee, founder of Community of Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church in Maryland.
“We acknowledge the shock of the moment but will not be paralyzed by it,” Lee said. “Many of us are in grief but we must lean into our hope that God still sits on the throne regardless of who sits on the throne.”
Lee also reminded of the difficult times that Black people have come through in America, including enslavement.
“We have seen hard times, and we have seen challenging leadership in the past, but our faith is in a God that can walk us through no matter what our situations are,” Lee said.
He also concluded that the Democratic Party, for which African Americans dominantly vote, must look inward. “One can speculate about Trump and the MAGA movement, but the Democratic party has just been doing a bad job in connecting with regular people. There is an elitism and there are too many on the ground organizations and they were just not putting the money where it needed to be.”
Rev. Joe Daniels, lead pastor of Emery United Methodist Church in D.C. and a long time community organizer, said voters must also study what the election says about America.
“We are at a time when America must look at itself in the mirror,” Daniels said. “We have a moral imperative. We have just elected a convicted felon…what does that say to our children? My prayer for this country is to do a deep dive in terms of character, integrity, truth, honor and all of the things that make us quality individuals. We have seen this movie before and the reruns.”
Many who believed the polls that Trump and Harris were running neck-in-neck now think that people ultimately could not bring themselves to vote for Harris once in the voting booth.
“Our nation has a racism and sexism issue, and we can’t run from that and figure out how we can overcome it” Daniels said. “My work is to confront truth with courage and to have the faith and courage to keep fighting.”
Rev. Henry P. Davis, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Highland Park, in Landover Maryland concluded that the answer is still in preaching the old-fashioned Gospel.
“So many people were drinking the kool-aid of politics thinking that our freedom was attached to politics. But our freedom is not attached to politics. Our freedom is attached to the grace of God,” Davis says. “The grace of God that brought us through the middle passage, Jim Crow and all of the things we have come through. This moment in history reminds us that you can’t put God on a back burner. Your Savior is not the President, your Savior is Jesus.”
