# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S60
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

60 Proceedings of the nineteenth convention

hallows and falsifies the holy sacraments, a Lutheran Christian can have no joy. Many Negro preachers are wretched babblers, indeed often coarse scoundrels.

Our missionaries write, among other things: "If someone were to raise the question: 'Who is to blame that God's name is so greatly profaned among the Negroes and his kingdom does not come to them?' we would answer without hesitation: next to the Prince of Darkness, it is not seldom his black accomplices among the Negro preachers. There are, to be sure, brilliant exceptions, but most of the other Negro preachers, with whom the colored people are at present afflicted, are capable of nothing in one half and capable of everything in the other half! They are men who have often enjoyed neither a Christian upbringing at home nor Christian instruction in a parochial school, and who in addition have often come into the ministry with no, or only deficient, often heathenish 'theological' training. . . . If they then know how to gather large 'crowds' and to coax a great deal of money out of their 'congregations,' they consider themselves desirable servants of the church." (See the "Miſſions⸗Taube" [Mission Dove] of June 1902.)

Booker T. Washington, the well-known Negro leader, of whom it certainly cannot be said that he does not know his own race, says: "Three quarters of the Baptist and two thirds of the Methodist Negro preachers are capable neither mentally nor morally of preaching the Gospel to others or of being a leader to others. With few exceptions the preaching of the colored preachers is nothing but emotional frenzy in the highest degree, and the pastor considers himself successful in proportion as he manages to carry his congregation away into loud bellowing, groaning, dancing about and unconscious ecstasies. Not one in twenty Negro preachers is trusted by his neighbors, and he who knows them best trusts them least, financially as well as morally. One of the chief tasks of these Negro preachers consists in raising their salary, and everything else is subordinated to this purpose. The greater part of the worship service consists in attempts to suck money out of the colored people." (Quoted from the "Lutheran Pioneer," vol. 18, p. 30.) So far Booker T. Washington, who, however, by no means stands alone in this view of Negro preachers.

W. Hannibal Thomas, formerly himself a colored Negro preacher, then lawyer and member of the legislature of South Carolina, writes in his book "The American Negro" as follows: "The recognized leaders of the Negro race are its preachers and teachers." But as Thomas writes further, thousands of them in the Southern states exist only to "lead a lazy, frivolous, if not vicious life." (p. 257.) Further: "There are countless Negro preachers and teachers who are so badly prepared for their chosen calling that one sees at first glance that the earthly callings of many strong workers have been robbed by this."