08/27/2021
Any institution wishing to call itself a church will offer freedom and liberation. This may be one of those "Thanks, Captain Obvious" statements, yet it is remarkable how often we forget that.
Here is a building whose church took it seriously. What is now the home for St. James AME Zion Church was a transfer point for people of African descent labeled as slaves en route to Canada. Many of these fugitives from the law were so impressed by the support of the local community that they laid down roots in Ithaca, New York, constructing homes in the unmediated area surrounding the church building.
The congregation officially expressed its anti-slavery sentiments through writings and preachings of its clergy, including Thomas James, who was known to have provided assistance to fugitives running for their lives and for freedom. Germain Loguen, am active participant in the Underground Railroad, was St. James's pastor for a time.
One Harriet Tubman played an active role in AME Zion church affairs in Western and Central New York and she visited St. James often. Frederick Douglass visited in 1852.
None of this could have happened without a commitment to both spoken word and justice in action, with a shared mission between clergy and laity. I cannot speak for St. James AME Zion in present day, as both COVID and my travel itinerary precluded an in-person visit with human beings, and I had to settle for visiting what is just a building. But in its history, St. James AME Zion demonstrates an embodiment of baptismal promises (not, it is worth stating, ordination vows). That is a church. Most anything else is just another social club.
