When I think of Owen Lovejoy, I think of a fellow pastor. I think of a clergyman who felt called by God not only to care for his congregation, but to care for his societal “neighbors,” who were not part of his church, not part of his family, not part of his race, and not even considered fully human by much of the white majority of his country. Owen Lovejoy felt called to stretch the boundaries of love beyond those of his immediate circle, beyond those to whom it would have been easier to relate, and beyond the diabolical distortions of the doctrine of white supremacy that undergirded the whole system of slavery. In short, Lovejoy chose to care for enslaved Black people in the United States of America—a group of people who were feared by many and despised by more, whose only assigned value lay in their ability to keep the economy of the United States (North and South) running, through their uncompensated labor in the cotton fields.
This is an ugly part of our history. The destructive legacy of white supremacy (and the social, political, and cultural policies that it engendered) is a source of great shame to many of us. It’s a reality at which we would truly like to avoid looking, if at all possible. Perhaps for this reason, many of us are barely acquainted with this part of our history. We may have learned the basic facts: important dates and figures involved with the pursuit of justice for Black Americans. But if you are like me, you will have grown up with very little sense of the emotional, psychological, and social toll that slavery and its outgrowths (Jim Crow laws, racial terrorism through lynching, forced ghettoization in the northern U.S., and mass incarceration) had on the Black Americans who lived through these horrors and who are still impacted by them to this very day. Without freedom to work for their own earnings, without freedom to buy houses in good neighborhoods, without any power in government to ensure equal access to good education, it is little wonder that massive gaps in wealth, educational achievement and quality of life continue to plague the African-American community. This is to say nothing of countless lives lost to brutality at the hands of slave traders, slave masters, lynch mobs, and the enforcers of unjust laws. But I did not learn about these things in school, only through prolonged careful reading, conversations with African American clergy, and a willingness to look at my own deeply ingrained prejudices. This has been a painful and heart-breaking journey, but it has allowed me to begin hearing uncomfortable truths that I had long wanted to avoid.
Owen Lovejoy is an example of a leader who decided not just to comfort the afflicted, but also to afflict the comfortable. He made the difficult decision to preach what was deeply controversial at the time—that the Gospel of Jesus Christ led directly to the message of abolition. Lovejoy believed that the One who said that he came “to set the captives free” actually meant it—not in some ethereal, other-worldly sense, but in real flesh-and-blood matters.
I did not learn about these things in school, only through prolonged careful reading, conversations with African American clergy, and a willingness to look at my own deeply ingrained prejudices. This has been a painful and heart-breaking journey, but it has allowed me to begin hearing uncomfortable truths that I had long wanted to avoid.
Today Princeton is rightly proud of Lovejoy and his role in the abolition of slavery. But in his time, he was not loved and appreciated by many, including members of his own congregation. They would have preferred a preacher who didn’t speak about uncomfortable truths, who would comfort them, but not remind them of the needs of their Black neighbors. This is often true in American history. In retrospect, we all pay homage to those who helped move the needle toward justice; but the bitter reality is that many of these leaders were despised in their time—by people like us: normal, decent white Americans. Lovejoy was strongly criticized; Martin Luther King, Jr., was seen as a “trouble-maker” and a Communist. The question that I wonder about is this: would I have heeded the words of truth spoken by these visionary leaders, or would I have clung to the comfort of the status quo? Would I have listened to their call to do justice and love mercy? Or would I have called these lovers of neighbor “dangerous radicals?” I hope that I might have joined them, but I am fearful of the true answer.
We live in a time in which these issues are not theoretical. Black lives in America bear the weight of centuries of oppression. This painful legacy is found in the prisons, in the criminal justice system, and in pernicious disparities between white and black people, in terms of financial security, educational achievement, and physical health. The question that I must ask, and that all of us must ask, is this: will we be like Owen Lovejoy? Or will we live in denial of the sufferings of Black people in the United States? Will we cling to the false narrative that our nation is a land of color-blind equality? Or will we allow ourselves to let down our defenses, to hear the stories, and to study the history of those on the other side of the color line in America? I believe that if we choose to listen and learn, we will begin to have more understanding of our country—good and bad, of our Black neighbors who have much to teach us, and of our own selves and how we have been shaped by history. Let us open our mind and our hearts, like Lovejoy!
“We live in a time in which these issues are not theoretical. Black lives in America bear the weight of centuries of oppression. This painful legacy is found in the prisons, in the criminal justice system, and in pernicious disparities between white and black people, in terms of financial security, educational achievement, and physical health. The question that I must ask, and that all of us must ask, is this: will we be like Owen Lovejoy?”
Most adherents of the Christian faith have heard of Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” We are perpetually stunned by his example of true neighbor-love (given to us in his parable of the Good Samaritan) in which the hero of the story is a despised person of another ethnic/social group. In Jesus’ parable, the Samaritan is the only person willing to help the Jewish man who was in need, even risking his own life to love his neighbor. In this simple story, Jesus makes it clear that our neighbor is not merely someone of our own socio-cultural group, but any human being of any race, age, or background who is in need (no matter how much they might be perceived as our cultural enemies). This command to love all is challenging enough in our ordinary lives, in the interactions that we have with other individuals. But it is most challenging to love our neighbor when we are confronted with society-wide injustice. This involves not merely doing an act of kindness for another, but advocating for whole groups of people at the level of legislation, policy, and education in cultural awareness.
For some, this feels too “political,” but it is time for us to see these practices as non-partisan acts of love for a whole group of our neighbors who need our respect and solidarity. In short, our call as Christians is to be like Owen Lovejoy who understood this broader approach to loving neighbors. Lovejoy realized that he could not honestly say that he was “loving his neighbor as himself” if he did not fight for a better life for Black Americans. There is still much work to be done today to make right the historic wrongs of the past. If we claim to love our neighbor, then let us show it in listening and learning, in word and deed, and in active engagement on behalf of and in partnership with Black fellow-Americans. Let us be like Owen Lovejoy.
– Rev. Derek C. Boggs, September 2020