Honoring a memory should prompt us to
Do something about it.
Why remember Frederick Douglass to celebrate MLK? Watch our Truth in Two (full text below).
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FULL TEXT
Over the past dozen years I have been teaching at Lancaster Bible College | Capital Seminary as a visiting professor. One of the courses I have taught is a PhD course titled, “Biblical and Theological Foundations for Ministry.” One project that is assigned is based on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Students are asked to address the question, “What present issue will my fellows or colleagues in the future identify, later saying to me, ‘Why didn’t you address _fill-in-the-blank_?’” By reading Douglass, students are pressed to consider the future, what I call anticipatory leadership.
In 2018 I took a course titled, “Civil War Literature and Culture” from the esteemed, brilliant, Dr. Jane Schultz. It was in her course that we read primary source literature from the Civil War era. At the end of the course, I wrote my final project on the theological foundations for the abolitionist movement. You can find the link to what became a peer-reviewed journal essay in this Truth in Two. Using Frederick Douglass as one of my sources I discovered that this former slave quoted the Bible as the basis for his desire to abolish slavery. Douglass looked to the future, to see ahead, to anticipate, the abolition of America’s sin of slavery.
And now, I ask students to consider their anticipatory leadership for future generations. You can find a three-part video series titled, “What Box? Leadership” linked in this Truth in Two which asks us all to consider our future, to peak around the corner, to anticipate future consequences of ideas we promote now. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, President of the Comenius Institute, personally thankful for the truths from Scripture, outlined by Frederick Douglass, as we celebrate on this holiday, the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
PROSPECTIVE SOCIAL LEADERSHIP QUERY:
Theological Roots of the Abolitionist Movement in Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” and Angelina Grimké’s “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South”[1]
[1] © Mark D. Eckel. Intégrité: A Journal of Faith and Learning, Fall, 2018, pp. 15-24 www.mobap.edu/integrite a peer-reviewed academic publication. The origin of the work was the final assignment for the IUPUI class “Civil War Literature and Culture” taught by Dr. Jane Schultz, Spring, 2018.
“What Box?!” Leadership, a 3-part video series on anticipatory leadership.