Related articles and links |  1 of 5

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the "Prince of Preachers," summed up his philosophy of preaching this way: "Above all, [the preacher] must put heart work into his preaching. He must feel what he preaches. It must never be with him an easy thing to deliver a sermon. He must feel as if he could preach his very life

away before the sermon is done." Gardner C. Taylor knows something about this kind of preaching. For more than 50 years he has "preached his life away." In 1980, Time named him "the dean of the nation's black preachers," and in a recent issue of the Christian Century, he was dubbed the "poet laureate of American Protestantism."

"Gardner Taylor is a consummate communicator," says William Pannell, professor of preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary in Southern California. Timothy George, dean of Samford University's Beeson Divinity School, concurs: "More than anybody else I have heard in my life, Gardner Taylor combines eloquence and passion in the endeavor of preaching."

As pastor of the 14,000-member Concord Baptist Church of Christ, Taylor, 77, labored as shepherd and prophet in Brooklyn's rugged Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood for 42 years until his retirement in 1990. Today, as Concord's pastor emeritus, Taylor is called upon to fill pulpits, give lectures, and provide keynote addresses at churches and educational institutions throughout the country. Though the legend of Gardner Taylor is great, those who know him readily admit the actual man is even greater.

Taylor is a grand, stately figure, so it is incongruous to see him behind the wheel of his late-model Ford rather than perched behind a pulpit. As he drives by Concord Baptist Church, I notice the street name on the corner: "Rev. Gardner C. Taylor Boulevard."

"Yes, it's a great honor," he chimes in. "But I come from Louisiana, where they named the state law school for former governor Richard Leche. His name was placed high up on the building, engraved in stone. However, when he went to the penitentiary, they took it down."

Such wry humor is customary with Taylor, who regularly uses anecdotes and personal remembrances to deflect attention away from himself and toward the business of preaching the gospel.

Born in 1918 to the Reverend Washington and Selina Taylor, Gardner Calvin Taylor inherited "Baptist genes" that many assumed would lead him to pastoral ministry. But he recalls, "I recoiled from the thought of being a preacher. I wanted to go to law school and become a criminal lawyer. My boyhood friends in Louisiana tried to discourage me from that idea, though; at that time, no black person had ever been admitted to the Louisiana bar."

Taylor, nevertheless, continued his plans and gained admission to the University of Michigan Law School. But in 1937, prior to leaving for Michigan, Taylor was involved in a tragic car accident. As he drove one night in rural Louisiana, a Model T Ford suddenly cut across his path. "I tried to avoid them, but I couldn't," he recalls. Both of the passengers in the other car died. And, though Taylor survived, he was left "shaken at my roots." Not only were two men dead, but they were two white men. And the only witnesses to the accident were a white farmer and a white oil refinery worker.

"In that day, for a white person to tell the truth about a black person in that situation was incredible; but those men told the truth. I would not be here today if they had not."

Through that jarring event, Taylor received his call to the ministry. "I was surprised by God's grace. I had been brooding about my future for a long time, but that was the defining moment."

next page... |  1 of 5

December 11 1995, Vol. 39, No. 14