All Saints Church Naperville Hosts: The Inaugural Douglass & Wells Lecture

All Saints Church Naperville invites you to to the Inaugural Douglass & Wells Lecture!

The Douglass and Wells Lecture Series is named in honor of Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells, two Black Christians, born into slavery, whose faith informed and helped sustain movements for justice arising out of the heart of the Black church.

Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist, writer, and politician who was instrumental in the fight to end slavery. After abolition, he continued to fight for justice for African Americans. Ida B. Wells is perhaps the most significant activist in the history of the anti-lynching movement and a strident voice in the long civil rights movement for the dignity and flourishing of Black people.

Every year, during the month of February, All Saints will invite a speaker to deliver a public lecture that will be open to the community.

The inaugural lecture will be delivered by our pastor, Fr. Esau McCaulley, PhD, on the subject of The Bible and the Black Church. He will examine the distinctive Bible reading habits of the Black church and explain how they came to see in the Scriptures a God who was a friend and not an enemy.
The purpose of this annual lecture is to help the people of All Saints and the surrounding community appreciate the distinctive theological and spiritual contributions that African American followers of Jesus have made to the church and the world.

Central to the lecture series is the conviction that one does not have to choose between a high view of Scripture, deep commitment to Jesus, and a concern for justice. These elements—personal piety, concern for justice, and love for God’s word—have always been hallmarks of the central stream of the Black Christian tradition. We want the lectures to reflect those same commitments.

Thematically, the speakers will have the freedom to engage different elements of the Black Christian tradition depending on their interests and abilities, including, but not limited to:

• The Black Preaching tradition
• Black sacred music
• African American Biblical interpretation & theology
• African American Political Theology
• Seminal figures in the history of the Black Church

The goal of all these lectures is the edification of the body of Christ because we believe that the riches of the Black Church tradition are a gift from that tradition to the world.

For more information, visit https://www.allsaintsnaperville.com

Host or Publisher All Saints Naperville