The Black church forever offers resilient hope
Sales have been driven by soap products
While watching the newly released PBS documentary, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song,” I instantly thought about the Negro spirituals and hymns that I grew up hearing in church as a young girl in Athens, Georgia.
The documentary, and the book which bears the same title, comprises the outstanding and vivid storytelling of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
An eminent scholar and filmmaker on the Black experience in the U.S., Gates begins his narration of “The Black Church” walking into Waldon United Methodist Church, the house of worship he attended in Piedmont, West Virginia.
From Gates’ recollections of the nurturing he received at an early age in the church, it’s clear that he has a deep, personal connection to the scholarship shared throughout his docuseries.
“The Black Church” is indeed a riveting, historical journey that Gates takes us on as he begins with tracing the beginnings of African American religious culture through slavery to our present day.
One of the most intriguing parts of this history is what scholars often refer to as the “Exodus motif,” the spiritual theme of the children of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt that profoundly resonated with Black slaves.
Although Christianity was the religion that their oppressors professed outwardly, slaves who had been exposed to biblical teachings comprehended a spiritual revelation that their masters could not.
Slaves miraculously saw God for who He truly is, a God who is no respecter of persons and who, as Matthew 5:45 states, looks on the just as well as the unjust.
This manifestation fueled their faith, which became their solid foundation on the long, laborious road to freedom, leading up to the end of the Civil War. It was a faith rooted in unswerving trust in God while still being ensnared in the merciless yoke of chattel slavery.
The heavy residue of racial prejudice that remained in American society after slavery was abolished has been, and still is, a point of contention when analyzing the history of Christian black churches.
Gates included an example of the 1792 split in the Methodist church due to an ugly racial incident. One Sunday, Absalom Jones, a Black minister and member of Philadelphia’s St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church, was ordered to go to the “nigger pews.”
Jones and fellow minister Richard Allen led Black members out of St. George’s and founded Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which is the nation’s oldest Black A.M.E. congregation.
White supremacist tenets in both the North and South that led to church segregation are well-documented in American Christianity, but Black churches expanded and prospered amid this bitter prejudice, with members still believing that our country would someday be better.
I often think about this today, as many are still disturbed and bewildered by the racism we saw on full display with the juxtaposition of nooses and “Jesus is my Savior” signs during the Capitol riot in January.
However, I believe those slaves who fervently prayed and worshiped in secret would encourage us to continue trusting that the God who delivered them from bondage is more than able to deliver us from the remnants of hatred and bigotry.
This is the ongoing story of the Black church, one that offers resilient hope that through God, all things are possible.
Jessica A. Johnson is a lecturer in the English department at Ohio State University Lima. Reach her at smojc.jj@gmail.com or @Jjsmojc
Sales of soap and hand sanitizer at Bath & Body Works helped L Brands post a record fourth quarter.
The Columbus-based retailer on Wednesday posted a profit of $860.3 million, or $3.03 per share, for the three months that ended Jan. 31, compared with a loss in the same quarter a year ago when L Brands wrote down the value of its Victoria’s Secret operation.
Sales rose 2% from a year ago to $4.8 billion.
As has been the case since the pandemic started, the company’s sales have been driven by consumers stocking up on soap products along with home fragrance and body care products at Bath & Body Works, while sales at Victoria’s Secret have struggled.
L Brands said sales at stores open at least a year, considered a key indicator of a retailer’s strength, rose 10% in the quarter. At Bath & Body Works, samestore sales climbed 22% during the quarter, but fell 3% at Victoria’s Secret.
For the year, L Brands earned $844.5 million, or $3 a share, compared with a loss of $366.4 million, or $1.33 per share, for the prior year.
Sales fell 8% for the year to $11.8 billion.
“Following on our record third-quarter results, the exceptional efforts and execution of our team enabled us to deliver another record performance in the fourth quarter,” the company’s CEO, Andrew Meslow, said in a statement. “We experienced consistent strength at Bath & Body Works along with continued significant improvement in performance at Victoria’s Secret.”
The company also issued a strongerthan-expected profit forecast for its first quarter, saying it expects to earn 35 to 45 cents per share. Wall Street was looking for profit of 7 cents per share.
Last year, stores closed in mid-march because of the pandemic.
L Brands did not issue a full-year
forecast, citing its plans to spin off or sell Victoria’s Secret.
It does plan to open 50 new Bath & Body Works stores in North America this year, partially offset by 20 to 40 closings, mostly in malls.
Victoria’s Secret says it will close 30 to 50 stores in North America after shutting down 241 stores in 2020.
L Brands’ shares have been on a roll the past year, jumping from $8 last March to a new 52-week high of $52.75 in trading Wednesday before the retailer released its quarterly results. mawilliams@dispatch.com @Bizmarkwilliams