Grimké’s Theology of the Kingdom of God Was a Source of Hope for Racial Equality
The Kingdom of God
The kingdom of God was the linchpin that connected the mission of Christ to the mission of God’s people in Grimké’s doctrine of the church, and it also informed the distinction he drew between the church’s mission as a gathered body and its mission as a scattered people. By drawing these connections, Grimké’s understanding of the kingdom of God underlined the importance of church unity, and it served as a source of hope for racial equality. In order to understand the connection he drew between the kingdom of God and these goals of unity and equality, it is essential first to understand his principles regarding the church as the visible kingdom of God and the spiritual nature of God’s kingdom.
Grimké followed the Reformed protestant tendency to identify the church with the visible kingdom of God.1 He made this identification explicitly in his meditations, writing that “we, who are Christians, are members of a great organization, the kingdom of God, an organization that is governed by certain rules and regulations which we are under obligation to respect, to recognize, to see that we conform to them, that our character and conduct are in harmony with them.” Here he attached his characteristic emphasis on the importance of Christian holiness to a notion of the church as the “organization” of the kingdom of God. For this reason, the strength of the church’s ministry depended on the corporate holiness of its people. In fact, as he put it:
One reason why the church, which is the visible representative of the kingdom of God on earth, is weak is because there are so many in it who have no proper sense of what is involved in being in it, and even where there is some appreciation of what is involved, there is no very great effort on the part of many to live up to their obligations.2
Grimké held that the church is the visible representation of the kingdom of God, and therefore its calling is to live in accordance with this lofty vocation.
Grimké on the Christian Life
Drew Martin
Born enslaved, Grimké dedicated his life to preaching the gospel and confronting the injustice of his time. This book presents Grimké’s vision of the Christian life, helping readers address important issues within the church today.
This identification of the kingdom of God with the visible church helps to explain many of Grimké’s statements regarding the church’s role in advancing the kingdom. Put simply, the “one purpose” of the church “is to extend the kingdom God, is to draw men out of the world into it, and to make them over after the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.” Given this purpose of extending God’s kingdom, evangelism and the ethical formation of the church’s members are its means for doing so. Similarly, the power given to do this kingdom work is a “spiritual power.”3On other occasions, Grimké added the church’s worship to evangelism and ethical formation as a third means of kingdom advancement. “Every service in the church should be a step in the direction of pushing forward the kingdom of God.” Therefore, the “arranging and conducting” of every service must be considered carefully. “We do not meet merely for the purpose of passing the time pleasantly together; we meet for spiritual development.” The edification of believers in the church’s worship prepares them to “influence others in the right direction.”4 In this way, the church’s worship serves to advance the kingdom of God.
Because Grimké emphasized the role of the gathered church in advancing God’s kingdom, he also taught that it is essential for individual Christians to be part of its corporate body. In one place he reiterated that the great mission of the Christian church is to see that the prayer “Thy kingdom come” is answered. This “glorious enterprise” means that “all who are Christians should throw themselves heart, soul, mind and strength” into its corporate work.5 Accordingly, he tied the failure to advance God’s kingdom to the fact that “so many are standing aloof” from the church, “content to remain outside the Christian church.” Though the failure to join the church was a problem, the primary problem was the failure of existing church members to follow God’s commandments. The “flagrant” violations of the “noble and beautiful spirit” of God and God’s precepts pushed people away from God’s kingdom rather than drawing them toward it. As a result, he diagnosed a “need of a great awakening throughout the whole Christian church.”6 While he highlighted the church as the visible representation of the kingdom of God and consequently held a highly elevated view of its mission, this high sense of calling led him not to arrogance or Christian pride but rather to self-examination and to proclaiming the need for the church’s reform.
The Spiritual Nature of the Kingdom
In addition to this emphasis on the church as the visible expression of God’s kingdom, Grimké’s other key kingdom teaching concerned the spiritual nature of the kingdom. The passages cited above regularly referred to the kingdom of Jesus Christ “being set up in this world.”7 Yet Grimké frequently specified that the precise epicenter of the establishment of the kingdom is “in the hearts” of people. While this establishment of God’s kingdom certainly moves beyond the heart to “the community, the state, the nation, the world,” the fundamental location of the kingdom is the heart. “The great business in the world is that which has been committed to the Christian Church. . . . In other words, the setting up of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men everywhere.” How is the kingdom to be set up in people’s hearts? The establishment of God’s kingdom in the human heart means “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). The establishment of the kingdom of God could not be separated from material effects, but Grimké explicitly affirmed that these material effects were secondary consequences of the establishment of God’s kingdom in the hearts of human beings. For Grimké, “the other great enterprises, that have to do with material interest, with the amassing of wealth, are as nothing compared to the task which the Church has in hand.” Therefore, the church must devote itself to its spiritual mission and “not waste its time, energy and resources on side issues, on matters of little or no importance in their bearing on the ultimate result.” According to Grimké, “God’s kingdom can come on earth, and we can all help to hasten its coming.” But he made this statement in the context of his affirmation of the precise location of the establishment of God’s kingdom in the present age: the human heart.8
The spiritual unity of believers entails direct implications for the unity of the church.
Grimké also highlighted the spiritual nature of the kingdom by placing the eternal salvation of souls in the center of kingdom work. In fact, he identified the pursuit of God’s kingdom with the pursuit of personal salvation. “The kingdom of God, in seeking the salvation of men, must be first . . . and must be kept first, high above every other interest.” This centrality of eternal salvation entails direct implications for the nature of the Christian ministry. “The Christian ministry is no place for one who does not see that his supreme mission is to call men to repentance and faith, and who is not fully determined to make everything else in his life subservient to that end.” Therefore, ministers of the gospel should “be all the time thinking and planning” to win people to Christ and to point them toward Christian faithfulness. According to Grimké, those who do not share in this calling of winning people to Christ and building them up in Christian character should “get out of the ministry,” for they “are out of place in the pulpit.” Such evangelism and discipleship is “really our only business,” he put it bluntly.9 Because he equated the kingdom of God with salvation, Grimké consistently taught that the supreme ministry of the church is calling people to faith and repentance in order that they might enter this eternal spiritual kingdom.
By observing Grimké’s frequent statements regarding the spiritual nature of the kingdom of God and the church’s identity as the visible expression of that spiritual kingdom, one can begin to understand his vision for the church as an engine of kingdom unity and racial equality. Whereas the theological modernists of his day made social unity and racial equality the center of the church’s kingdom mission, Grimké affirmed these ideals but taught that they were natural consequences and not the mission itself. This also distinguished him from the fundamentalists of his day who failed to appreciate the connection between these social derivatives and spiritual kingdom work. If the church is the visible expression of the kingdom of God, it must include people of all races. If the church is a spiritual kingdom, the proclamation of the gospel and Christian discipleship are its central, indeed “only,” endeavors. Grimké traced a narrow path to balance and order these priorities.
The spiritual unity of believers entails direct implications for the unity of the church. Though there “are many folds,” there is “but one flock, and one shepherd of all.” Therefore, all Christ’s sheep must “hear the voice of the same shepherd” and “obey his voice.” Hearing and obeying imply spiritual oneness. “They are one in their love to Christ and purpose to follow him, and him only.” According to Grimké, this exclusive allegiance to Christ “is the only kind of church unity that counts for anything, that is of any value.” Allegiance to Christ implies acknowledgment of all one’s fellow citizens in the kingdom, for Christ is a “common Lord of all” and the source of the unity “that we should all be striving for.” If “all believers” were “thus united,” they “would become a tremendous power for good in the world. Grimké held that church unity is the key to confronting the “kingdom of darkness.” Before a unified church, “the kingdom of darkness would soon go down, the strongholds of wickedness would soon be overthrown.”10
In turn, the unity of the church points to the solution to the “race problem” in the world. Grimké noted the prophet Isaiah’s assertion that “the government of Christ . . . is to continue, and is to go on increasing.” Speaking of Jesus’s rule and authority, Grimké continued, “He is to get more and more the controlling influence in the world, and over the hearts of men.” Therefore, Grimké believed that the problems of the present age will not always be with us. “The lion and the lamb will ultimately, under his beneficent reign, lie down together.” As a result, there will be a day when “men of all races will find no difficulty in living together in peace and harmony.” It was this vision that enabled Grimké to pursue the hard work of ministry and social advocacy. The certainty of Jesus’s promise to set up the kingdom of God on earth” is not “a groundless hope.”11
Despite present circumstances, Grimké expressed confidence in the realization of God’s kingdom on earth, the ending of conflict, and the inevitability of racial unity and equality. “What the Bible says about the reign of Jesus Christ has in it the solution of all the dark problems of earth.” Therefore, “all we have got to do is to go on working in faith; working in the confident assurance that [t]here are brighter days ahead.” Dark times should not be a source of discouragement, for “the Triumph of the Messiah’s kingdom is assured.”12
Grimké’s identification of the church and the kingdom of God and his related affirmation of the church’s spiritual mission filled him with hope and oriented his ministry. He called the church to devote itself to evangelism, discipleship, the worship of God, and a life of service flowing out of these priorities. He believed that these spiritual priorities would lead to worldly good, but he saw such material and temporal goods as the consequences of the church’s mission and not the mission itself. He trusted that God’s kingdom would prevail, and this confidence gave him hope for spiritual unity and racial equality in a dark world absent of those conditions. As he cast this vision of the kingdom of God, he simultaneously cast a vision for the church’s mission.
Notes:
- For a good example of this Reformed Protestant tendency, see, e.g., the Westminster Confession of Faith, 25.2.
- Carter G. Woodson, The Works of Francis J. Grimké, vol. 1, Addresses Mainly Personal and Racial, ed. Carter G. Woodson (Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1942),, 3:233.
- Works, 3:467–68.
- Works, 3:492. The link between the church’s worship and the advancement of God’s kingdom was strong enough in his mind that he later recorded a very similar sentiment: “Everything about a church service should be so arranged, ordered as to advance the kingdom of God, as to benefit the hearers, as to build them up in faith and holiness,—as to make better men and women of them. Whether this result is realized or not, that should be the conscious aim back of every service.” Works, 3:583.
- Works, 3:376.
- Works, 3:248
- See, e.g., Works, 3:572.
- Works, 3:76.
- Works, 3:420.
- Works, 3:478.
- Works, 3:328.
- Works, 3:331. Grimké expressed this confidence in the immediate context of pessimism regarding the current trajectory of racial equality in America. Contrary to a then-recent article in Harper’s magazine by Oswald Garrison Villard, Grimké cited Scott Nearing’s Black America and R. R. Moton’s What the Negro Thinks to argue that “the color line may be crumbling, but if it is it is barely perceptible.” Grimké explicitly placed his hope in the final outcome of God’s kingdom rather than present circumstances: “There is a bright side to the problem, and the thing that makes it bright is not so much these little gleams of light that come to us from time to time, in what Mr. Villard directs attention to, but in the certainty of the fact that God is on the throne.” Works, 3:330.
This article is adapted from Grimké on the Christian Life: Christian Vitality for the Church and World by Drew Martin.
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