An Interview with Elmer Beard: Remembrances of Black Activism, Communal Solidarity, and the Burning of Roanoke Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas

Context The oral history interview with Mr. Elmer Beard, a longtime political activist, politician, and educator, is part of a series of interviews for a study on Black church burnings, arsons, and vandalism from 2008 to 2016. Mr. Beard gives historical context to recent Black church arson with a focus on the mysterious burning of Roanoke Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on 22 December 1963. On 9 March 2018, the interview took place in Hot Springs at the current church site. The dialogue starts with biographical questions and evolves into details about Mr. Beard’s experience growing up in a racially segregated society, particularly in south-central Arkansas.

Dr John Goodsir (1746–1816): The surgeon of Largo

The ancient fishing village of Lower Largo or the Seatoun of Largo stands quietly on Largo Bay along the north side of the Firth of Forth and is famous as being the birthplace of its famous resident, Alexander Selkirk, who inspired Daniel Defoe’s, Robinson Crusoe. However, it has another resident, Dr. John Goodsir, who, for forty-six years served as a medical practitioner and was a Minister of the Gospel at the Largo Baptist Church for twenty years. The current work describes the life of this ordinary early medical practitioner and surgeon, discusses his correspondences, and finally examines his role as serving as Largo’s Baptist minister.

Sunday Sounds

Rev. Dr. William Augustus Jones, Jr. was pastor of Brooklyn’s Bethany Baptist Church for over 40 years and a significant figure in the African-American community. In the mid-1970’s New Jersey radio station WFME approached him with an offer to have his Sunday sermons broadcast as The Bethany Hour in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut markets. Brooklyn College Archives has the Jones collection, which contains cassette recordings of several hundred of these sermons, as well as video recordings from the program’s short time on broadcast television. With no playback equipment for patrons, and concerned about the physical integrity of the recordings, the archives decided to digitize the materials. With a tight budget and no digitization expertise on staff, the archives applied for and won a Council on Library and Information Resources Recordings-at-Risk grant. Despite some delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project was made available to the public at the end of March 2021.

‘The wrath of God on children of disobedience’

The arrival of pandemic diseases (of which COVID-19 is the latest, but not likely to be the last) could be understood, along with impending ecological disaster and global warming, to be the major existential threats envisioned by, and facing, our contemporary culture. This article focuses on the use made of the theme of COVID-19 in the theology and ideology of the Westboro Baptist Church – a Calvinist and Primitive Baptist church founded in Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s by Fred Phelps Sr (1929–2014). While numerically small, the church has become infamous through its practice of picketing funerals, and has been characterized as a hate group espousing antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ positions. Through a reading and analysis of sermons and other published materials from the Westboro Baptist Church, the article maps the motif of COVID-19 as it is used by a church whose members perceive themselves as the heralds of an angry God.

Visit to Southwell and Kariega Baptist Church 20 May 2021

On Thursday 20 May, 43 members set off from the Port Alfred Civic Centre at 9 am sharp to visit the old school and St James church in Southwell, where Moira Stirk kindly addressed us. This was followed by a visit to the historic Baptist Church in Kariega, where we were addressed by Hubert Webber, whose family has long been connected with the area.

Totalitarian Sects within the Current Political Processes

This article studies the phenomenon of totalitarian sects entering politics. It concerns the participation of totalitarian sects in the political processes and election campaigns with the aim of getting into power, as well as the attempts of some political figures to rely on the infrastructure of totalitarian sects in order to promote themselves in the ruling structures. The author summarizes the works of Russian and international social thinkers and religious scholars, studying totalitarian sects as a relatively new social and religious phenomenon, supplementing and developing their findings. In particular, the following features are recognized as the key characteristics of totalitarian sects. A relatively recent foundation — usually with the founder still alive. A charismatic leader — the founder or successor, who has unquestionable authority. Closed information environment, filtering any external information signals. Careful regulation of the adherents' life, as well as their double code language, allowing them to recognize others in a “friend-or-foe” mode, which likens totalitarian sects to criminal communities. A rigid hierarchy that doses information about the organizations' goals to its members at different levels of initiation; adherents' compulsory financial participation and preaching activities. The author analyzes the promotion of totalitarian sects in politics using examples from Ukrainian and Russian political practices of the post-Soviet period. In particular, he studies the political activities of such structures as the Livets Ord (lit. “Word of Life”) Baptist Church, the Scientology Church, the Embassy of God sect (Sunday Adelaja), the Unification Church (Sun Myung Moon), the Living Word Baptist Church, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the Last Covenant Church, Slavic neopagan groups and radical Islamist sects. The network community formed around the Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation also possesses the attributes of a totalitarian sect. Particular attention is paid to specific examples of the political involvement of totalitarian sects and their influence at different levels of government in Ukraine and in the Russian Federation, as well as the resulting damage. Considering the scale of totalitarian sects' activities in Russia — hundreds of such organizations are involved, up to 1 million people in total — the author emphasizes their use by foreign intelligence services, which poses a threat to Russia's national security.

Spiritual Synchronicity: Icon Veneration in Evangelical and Orthodox Religious Practices in the 21st Century

Much scholarship in the dialogue between evangelical and Orthodox believers focuses on doctrinal compatibility. This article contributes to that literature by giving an example of a spiritual practice (icon veneration) that creates additional space for ecumenical dialogue and unity. Some US-evangelicals in the 21st century have incorporated the use of icons into their personal faith practices. Icon veneration is ripe with ecumenical potential for evangelical–Orthodox relations because of its prominence in Orthodox communions while at the same time appealing to a growing number of evangelicals. This article considers three sites of evangelical icon use in turn: the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia (EBCG), Icons of Black Saints, and an evangelical ministry called “Heart of the Artist”. Each site adopts a slightly unique understanding of icons that may appeal to evangelical believers. Although Orthodox and evangelical believers may understand theologies of icon veneration differently, the emergence of icon veneration among evangelicals remains a spiritual synchronicity, and ought to be recognized as such. Evangelicals continue to receive the gift of icon veneration from their Orthodox siblings in ways in line with the EBCG, Black Orthodox icons, and Heart of the Artist, so icon veneration has potential to further resource ecumenical dialogue.