The Life and Witness of Edward Blyden

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
February 19th 2006

Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“The Life and Witness of Edward Wilmot Blyden”
Matthew 21:12-17

This morning we could spend a great deal of time simply on the many achievements of Edward Wilmot Blyden. Though he is virtually unknown in the United States, there is so much about his life and witness which is worthy of our time. During his life, Edward Wilmot Blyden served as an ordained Presbyterian Minister who “spent his whole life championing and vindicating his race.”[i] His accomplishments include serving as: Liberian Commissioner to Britain and the United States, Professor of Classics at Liberia College, Liberian Ambassador to the Court of St. James in the United Kingdom, Secretary of State of Liberia, Accomplished author and newspaper publisher.
However, I believe that the many accomplishments of this driven man are not the most interesting or pertinent for us this morning. Today, as we look to his witness there is something else which demands our focus. Edward Wilmot Blyden was uncompromising in his crusade to undermine the prevailing belief, at the turn of the century, that people of African descent were inherently inferior to people of European descent. This belief led him to openly challenge many of the practices of the Christian church. His challenges not only placed him in conflict with white church leadership, but also with leaders in the black church. These challenges have an important legacy with real modern relevance.
Edward Wilmot Blyden was born on August 3rd 1832 on the island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. It is written that he was a precocious child who had a natural aptitude and love for learning and for his faith. Edward had natural gifts and the willingness to work to perfecting his talents. Edward’s earliest mentor was young Presbyterian Minister by the name of John P. Knox. (Good name for a Presbyterian minister…)
Knox noticed the deep spirituality and keen intelligence in Edward Blyden. However Knox was not the only one who could see that young Edward was destined to become a minister. So, when Knox returned the United States, he offered to take Edward with him to see to his theological education. Edward accepted.
When Rev. Knox sought to enroll Edward in his alma mater Rutgers Theological College, Edward was denied admission because he was black. This was Edwards’s first experience with such overt racism and it left quite an impression. However, it did not extinguish his passion for learning or his call to ministry. So, with the assistance Knox and other Presbyterian Ministers, Edward Blyden left the United States to study in Liberia.
In 1851, at the age of nineteen, he arrived in Monrovia Liberia. In order to pay for his education at the Alexander school, Edward took a part time job as a clerk for a merchant. Edward immersed himself in his studies and excelled in; mathematics, classics, geography and Hebrew. Because of his clear gifts, a local benefactor made arrangements so that Edward could quit his job and devote himself full time to study. By the time he was twenty-one, he was a licensed lay preacher and at twenty-six he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister and appointed Principle of the Alexander school.
By the time he had become principle of the school, Edward Blyden his reputation as a top notch scholar was widely known. However, because of the limited resources of the school and his teachers, he was, in many ways, self taught. Once Edward became principle of the Alexander school he petitioned the mission board for better support for supplies and facilities. Unfortunately, many of his requests fell on deaf ears. As a result, he often had to find the necessary supplies anywhere he could. Though this was not his greatest frustration with the institutional church it was indicative of a bigger struggle.
Edward Blyden was a Presbyterian Minister who was quite vocal in his criticism of the practices of his own church. His many challenges were well founded. Edward saw the church’s rejection of everything African for what it truly was: racist. Edward saw, in the actions of the western missionaries, a fear of all local customs and practices. The outright rejection of all local customs showed an ignorance of the foundations of Christianity. His extensive study had shown him how Christianity emerged from a culture more closely related to the African continent than to Europe.
While this might seem like an elementary idea to us, Edward Blyden faced a church which taught its mission personnel that: “the African mind… (is) blank or worse than blank, filled with everything dark and horrible and repulsive.” It was this sort of teaching which Edward was facing. The church was teaching people of African descent to accept themselves as inferior which worked to destroy all racial pride. This has, no doubt, led many people of African descent to give up on the church for its complicity in this evil.
Edward Blyden’s criticism of Christianity always had to do with its practice and not with its essence. In other words, he was clear to separate the practice of Christianity from the teachings of Jesus. Edward Blyden simply rejected ‘christianity’ which propped up, however subtly, white supremacy. In fact, Edward Blyden had much praise for the way in which Christianity had lead to the Haitian people’s self-emancipation from the imperialism of France.
After years of struggling with the mission board, Edward Blyden gave up his ordination in the Presbyterian Church. At that occasion, he said he would no longer be a Presbyterian minister but a “minister of truth.” In his writings about this incident, it is clear he was parting ways with an institution which refused to repent of its continual racist practices. He no longer could support an institution which assumed the natural inferiority of African peoples. Unfortunately it took nearly fifty years after the death of Edward Blyden for our academic institutions to ‘catch on’ to the truth of his criticism. Some of our local congregations have yet to fully repent of their own complicity.
Edward Wilmot Blyden was a visionary, a reformer and an idealist, which is a volatile combination. He had one grand vision of which he pledged his life. Edward Blyden’s hope was to be a catalyst for the development of one West African State. He believed this state would be a beacon which could show the world that people of African descent were not inferior to the white race. In his work he ran into resistance from church leaders, European colonizers, and from tribal leadership. If Edward Blyden’s life were to be judged based on the realization of one West African State it would be deemed a failure. However, despite this unfulfilled dream, his life and impact is far from a failure.
In his work to realize this dream he accomplished so much. In his most famous work, Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race, Blyden broke down walls of prejudice across Europe. The reaction of critics in Europe was one of astonishment and almost disbelief that a book of such undoubted literary and scholarly merits, could have been written by a person of African descent. While this seems ridiculous today, it was something that no one before Edward Blyden had done. Historian and biographer Hollis Lynch writes: “Blyden was one of the few (people of African descent) to make a significant impact on the English-speaking literary and scholastic world in the nineteenth century.”[ii]
In the gospel reading this morning, Jesus entered the temple and turned over the tables of the money changers. This action and his anger were a calculated response to an unjust system. The money changers were notorious for the ways in which they took advantage of the poor. What enraged Jesus was that this system was supported and maintained by the religious leadership. They were using the law in order to protect their personal interests. Jesus is confronting this practice which bares no resemblance to the living and loving teachings of God. This encounter is a harsh reminder of what can happen when religious practice no longer bears witness to God and seeks to protect the institutions of religion.
In his life and work of Edward Wilmot Blyden called on the church, his church, to live out its message. It was a call not well received by a church convinced of white supremacy and was blinded by self-preservation. In many ways, the church today has finally caught up with this visionary and prophet of our faith. However, there is still much to be done since the sin of racism and the blindness of self-preservation continues to infect the practices of Christianity.
The life and witness of Edward Wilmot Blyden is an inspiration and one which this brief sermon can hardly do justice. It is however one which ultimately points to an important truth. It is a reminder that the church is not the gospel. It is a reminder that the church is not the message. Given the history of the church, this is good news. It is good news which reminds us that our call is not about self-preservation. Our call is to bear witness to the one who is the gospel, who is the message, who is the good news; Jesus Christ. Amen.
[i] Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot 1832-1912 Hollis R. Lynch. Oxford University Press 1967. p. v.ii
[ii] Ibid. p.54