The Imposing Preacher: Samuel DeWitt Proctor and Black Public Faith

3 On the Making of a Public Faith

3 On the Making of a Public Faith Proctor's Intellectual Roots Samuel DeWitt Proctor’s faith provides insight into understanding his concerns about racism in America. His understanding of those doctrines or faith claims that make up the Christian witness is an amalgam of his experience as an African American and his theological education (local church and academic). He was a bridge figure or pragmatic harmonizer. His was a theology that made theory praxis. In his experience as an African American, he witnessed and encountered segregation firsthand. Proctor, moreover, was a black Baptist who processed the Christian religion through that theological lens. There is no doubt that his experience as an African American Baptist shaped his worldview and impressed upon him the importance of valuing all persons as children of God—a lesson he learned as early as his childhood.1 His religious notions were formed by an Afro-Baptist context and by principles and language appropriated from his formal theological education—notions that informed his desire to transform the racist environment of American public life while diplomatically rejecting ideas of the Black Power movement and black liberation theology. As noted in chapter 2, Proctor received his formal theological education in a Baptist college, a theologically liberal northern Baptist seminary, and prominent northern universities. He learned the principles of the social gospel theology and matriculated at the center of the Personalist school of theological and philosophical thought, the Boston University School of Theology.2 The confluence of a racially conscious Christian upbringing and socially oriented education in theology led to the formation of a black public faith that sought to transform society for African Americans and other marginalized persons in the world. The ideas that Proctor published early in his career did not always reflect his social thought. The religious principles at the foundation of his early thought, however, anticipate his public theology and its response to racism. 75 This chapter and the next one are dedicated to what that thought looks like in his writings and sermons. I examine his sermons and writings to piece together his Christian beliefs. Later chapters will examine the aims of Proctor’s religion. A focus on Proctor’s Christian faith requires some basis by which one approaches it. As a Christian preacher, on most Sunday mornings, Proctor used one of the main sources of theological reflection: the Bible. Before examining some of Proctor’s religious notions and tendencies, we should take an in-depth look at the intellectual and spiritual concepts that shaped him. Proctor was a black Baptist preacher who was also a product of the twentieth-century liberal theological tradition in America. Since Proctor spent a large portion of his career expressing his beliefs from the pulpit of an African American Baptist congregation, it follows that his sermons would provide insight into his religious thought. In addition to his writings, I rely heavily upon Proctor’s sermons as sources of theology. Research on sermons from twentieth-century preachers, especially black preachers, is a neglected area of historical research. But his sermon catalog is rich with theological material. He fits into the larger context of the Baptist faith and the liberal theological tradition. I cannot here describe in detail the varied practices and beliefs that exist among Baptists and the numerous theological suppositions of the “liberal” theologians of the period.3 But the following discussion is an effort to summarize general religious beliefs among these groups, aimed at a better understanding of Proctor’s development within his historical and theological contexts. Proctor the Black Baptist As a product of an Afro-Baptist theological tradition, Proctor embraced the tenets of the Baptist faith. Because of the limited resources available from Proctor’s childhood, I rely on a general understanding of the Baptist faith. The calendar of high and holy days in the Black Church tradition probably produced several Easter and Christmas recitations from the Proctor children. Sunday school was the norm for Proctor. The Baptist church was the home of his faith. Something held Proctor in the Baptist tradition. He was an ordained Baptist preacher. He served as the pastor of two Baptist congregations. To be sure, certain links to the larger Baptist tradition are evident in his thought. As a Baptist, Proctor grew up with an evangelical faith that leaned on the Bible as its primary source of God’s revelation to humankind. In the Bible, Christians (of which Baptists are one tradition) embrace the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus...