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“People persevered during their experience of dark times because faith sustained them, faith connected them, and faith gave them the courage to act according to the will of our righteous Lord.” When the Rev. Dr. Gina Robinson (G-ETS ’23) preached at Garrett Seminary in one of the Black History Month chapels organized by Garrett’s Center for the Church and the Black Experience (CBE), she wasn’t shy about naming the overwhelming violence and political injustice, but she also refused to grant these broader circumstances the final word. “The same faith that made our ancestors mighty makes us mighty,” Dr. Robinson continued. “We are blessed to carry forward this faith-filled work that was started before us. And we do not do this work alone because the great cloud of witnesses never leaves our side.”

It was exactly the kind of testimony that M.Div. student Medomfo Owusu hoped would flow when she and Ph.D. student Rev. Candace Simpson organized the chapel series—an interconnectedness that spans generations and lends strength in dire moments. “We will rejoice and be glad in this day not because of what is happening around us, but because of who is with us,” Owusu explains. “The fact that God took our ancestors out of colonialism and enslavement, from insidious acts of lynching, rape, and segregation—the gospel of Jesus says there will be life beyond that death. You survive your era by reflecting on the cloud of witnesses from the past and in birthing future clouds of witnesses.” Subsequent preachers carried forward the theme that Dr. Robinson began, with MAPCC student Rev. William Mack Jr. and Garrett alum Rev. Demetrius Davis likewise offering hope that faith will illuminate a future beyond our current crises.

That overarching message is part of what CBE director Rev. Dr. Reggie Blount believes the center offers both the Garrett community and the world beyond our doors. “Black America knows racial authoritarianism. These are not new times,” Garrett’s Murray H. Leiffer Associate Professor of Formation, Leadership and Culture says with wearied determination. “Even in oppressive moments, Black America has found ways to thrive and flourish—to see itself through challenges and keep hope alive.” Through liturgy, Owusu sought to instill chapel attendees with that embodied hope. “It’s something I wanted people to encounter,” she notes. “We speak about the body so much, but we don’t experience what it means to live out embodied liturgies on the regular—so when people feel warmth in their hearts or like they want to react to what the sermon stirs within them, they often don’t know what to do with those emotions.” Owusu observes that what outside observers often describe “spontaneity” in Black worship styles is frequently interplay between a carefully prepared order of service and the embodied reactions that hymns and proclamation elicit among those gathered.

For Dr. Blount, this tether between enfleshed, liturgical hope and Black communities isn’t incidental—it has always been a core feature of Black theologies. “Even when oppressive persons and groups try to make us think or feel like we are less-than, it’s an ability to return to a rootedness that reminds us that we’re made in God’s image,” he explains. “We do not allow external forces to define who we are in our essence.”

Part of that power for Owusu came from interacting with alums who used their experience at Garrett to launch vibrant ministries. “When you’re in seminary it can feel really overwhelming and exhausting,” she confesses. “It’s a joy to see people who have made it, who are thriving in the call that God has placed on them, especially as a Black person.” That exchange brings joy to Dr. Blount, as well. “Being able to witness how these graduates walk alongside God in the in the work that they’re doing—becomingleaders who pass on knowledge, guidance and direction—it brings gratitude to see that I have been a faithful steward of the students who’ve been entrusted to me,” he says. “I’ve reached the stage where part of my responsibility is to pass on wisdom, to remind younger generations that there’s really nothing new under the sun.”

For students like Owusu, it’s an invitation to step into that long tradition of Black theological excellence at Garrett—a lineage that includes intellectual giants like Dr. James H. Cone and Dr. Emilie M. Townes—and claim her place as someone who can bring healing into the world’s shattered places. “I’m asking, ‘Even in a moment where it feels like death, how is life still operating?’” she shares. “That doesn’t mean that we negate the despair that’s happening. But Black history and theologies contend that even if someone is putting a chokehold on me, I still need to breathe. This may be our reality, but I will dream of the next thing. I can use my laments to create light and birth new things in this time, because tears nourish the soil. Life will emerge from it.”