Gerald Durley can tell you plenty of stories about the “movement”: marching with Martin Luther King, Jr., leading sit-ins to protest Jim Crow, getting arrested multiple times in pursuit of equal rights for African Americans.
Today as senior pastor of Providence Missionary Baptist Church, a congregation of 1,000 in the heart of Atlanta, Durley seeks to bring to the church the same passion and conviction that inspired so many to march three decades ago.
“The church of Christ in the modern day is called to do the same thing that the saints of the early church were called to do,” Durley says. “They were called to point people to Christ and save souls. I think that is the primary mission. And the apostles and first-century believers were doing that. But by the same token, we, as did they, have an obligation to meet the everyday needs of the people. Jesus was our great role model. When people were hungry, he did more than preach to them. He took five loaves and two fishes and opened up a restaurant on the side of the mountain to feed everybody there.
“When people were sick and crippled, rather than just praying from a distance, Jesus went to them and they came to him. So we also have an obligation to look at the sickness and the illness in people’s lives.”
Durley is an electric presence. At 58 he’s cut like a retired pro athlete (at one time he played pro basketball in Switzerland) who could still mix it up with the young guys if necessary. You first notice his contagious smile, but when he speaks you feel the fire and compassion.
Equal parts evangelist and social activist, Durley recently made headlines when it was revealed that actress Jane Fonda had been attending his church. He met Fonda when the two served together on the board of G-CAPP—Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. Durley refuses to talk about Ms. Fonda’s newfound faith publicly, saying it is a private matter, but it is clear that his involvement in social efforts was key to forging a friendship with the actress.
Combining his activism with church ministry was not always a clear-cut focus for Durley. As a college student, he concentrated mainly on the sociological end of issues. But a Peace Corps tour of Nigeria and a Ph.D. in psychology led Durley to refocus his vision.
“I was asking hard questions: ‘How do we make a just society?’ ‘How do we look at the immorality in our world?’ I had tried to make life better through social reform and psychological reform and educational and political reform,” he says. “After I got to a certain point, I began to understand that the undergirding of all of those principles has to be spiritual, not something that Freud said but something spiritual. So that’s when I went to seminary.”
After a stint as a dean at Clark Atlanta University, Durley went on to become pastor of Providence, where he has been for the last 13 years. In keeping with Durley’s philosophy, Providence features an array of outreach and social-service ministries: an after-school program, a resource center for young fathers, a food bank that feeds 150 families weekly, community development projects for beautifying urban neighborhoods.
This year the church has been active in getting people in the community to complete their Census forms and register to vote.
Combine all this with a zealous commitment to evangelism and spiritual discipleship and you have a church that touches people body and soul.
“The church’s role as a social/spiritual activist must be to alleviate physiological, psychological, sociological ills, so that the strength of the Holy Spirit can guide us into all truth,” Durley explains. “It’s very difficult for me to teach you mathematics in my classroom if you need glasses. I’ve got to get you some glasses so you can see the blackboard. Then, once you see the board, I can teach you math.”
Not in this town
Perhaps Durley’s most notable recent efforts was the campaign to shut down the 9½ Weeks Adult Novelty Store and to revoke the liquor license of the Gold Club, a notorious strip joint and the alleged center of drug trafficking and prostitution. The club is not in Durley’s neighborhood, but after requests from pastors in communities near the club, Durley decided to add his energy to the battle.
“When I hear of college students working in there because they get paid $300 a night for nude dancing or waiting tables, that becomes an issue for me as a Christian leader. I need to talk to those young women about their bodies being living temples of God and how they’re being desecrated when men pinch and ogle them for carnal pleasure—and, on the other side, I need to work to have that establishment shut down.”
The pastors targeted the Gold Club in its most vulnerable area—its ability to sell alcohol. Durley went before Atlanta’s liquor zoning board to petition for the removal of the club’s license. When that effort became mired in bureaucracy, the group met with the mayor and other city officials. Eventually the license was revoked.
In their crusade against 9½ Weeks, Durley and members from the congregation took to the streets.
“We went out there across from the shop with cameras at night, shining flashlights and blowing horns. And the men ran away. You see, roaches don’t like to operate in light,” he says.
“We pointed cameras at anybody that came in. We told them, ‘We’re taking a picture and sending it to your wife if you go in there and buy anything.’ It took us a month, but the owner finally moved because he was losing his clientele. He didn’t care about the morals; he did care about the economics. Once we hit him there, he was gone.”
Ready to play ball
Durley believes a church of any size can make a difference when it comes to reaching out to the needy and improving the community. Every pastor and church, he says, has a role to play.
“When there is an issue that is germane to a community, then the pastor needs to pray about it. Maybe I’m not the right person to lead the fight. Maybe somebody in the community has to lead it. It might be a school board issue, and I might not be as adept on it. I might be a supporter. Then I might have to pray for those people who are going to lead it. I have to define my role and what God is calling me to do.”
Durley adds: “I have to look at how it directly impacts the lives of those that I’m called to serve, and those that I’m called to witness to. Then I have to look at how much I am willing to risk for the cause.”
He knows that not everyone will feel called to a particular issue. Knowing which battles to choose is an ongoing challenge for the activist/pastor.
Durley recently had to decide whether to throw his weight into the battle over the public display of the Confederate flag. As an African American, he says he is personally offended by the implicitly racist message the flag sends. And as a pastor, he opposes anything that would divide people—especially Christians—on the grounds of race and culture. Still, when it came to taking an active role in protesting the flag’s public display in Georgia and South Carolina, Durley decided his efforts would be put to better use in other areas, though he offered to support activist groups and state officials to remove the flags at the appropriate time.
The most important thing, says Durley, is to be faithful to what God is calling him to do—spiritually and socially. Indeed, he sees little distinction between the two.
Many Christians frown upon the church’s engagement in politics and social activism. In days past, Christians who brought activism into the church were accused of spreading a “social gospel.” Durley knows a stigma still remains with mixing the sacred with the social, he feels the church needs both in order to be whole and effective: “Is a church truly fulfilling its purpose if it does not act upon its Sunday-morning devotion in the everyday matters of life?”
“What good is it for me in the physical world to just get in shape to play a basketball and never to go out and play?” he asks. “The balance is when I get in shape and go play a game. Well, a lot of churches spend all of their time getting in shape—worship, worship, worship—and they never go out and put that passion for God to work where he said they should. He’s going to ask many of his churches, ‘Where were you when I was hungry?’ ‘Where were you when I had aids?’ ‘Where were you when my teen daughter got pregnant?’ ‘Where were you when I was in jail?'”
Stepping out of his preacher cadence, Durley pauses and adds: “One day we’ll stand up before Judge God and be asked what we did with what he has given us. And we must be faithful to live and preach his whole gospel.”
Ed Gilbreath is associate editor of Leadership.
How to Choose Your Battles
Whether it’s shutting down a porn shop or petitioning for a zoning variance, every pastor will face social and political issues. These guidelines lead to discernment.
- Pray. Seek God’s will on how you should respond. Don’t be motivated solely by guilt or pressure. You must have a conviction in your heart that this is what God wants you to do.
- Weigh. Consider your other ministry commitments, the effect the issue will have on your church and community, and what your specific contributions might be.
- Communicate. When confronting a negative force in the community, first go to the offending parties and graciously ask for their cooperation. For instance, before mounting our aggressive campaign against the porn club, we went to the owner, explained the detrimental effects of his establishment, and asked him to close it.
- Assist. If you aren’t called to be on the frontlines of a campaign, find other ways to support those who are. In addition to praying for them, offer financial gifts, write a letter on their behalf, or show up at an event to support the cause with your presence.
- Persist. Don’t expect to win your first battle, or even your second or third. Most causes worth fighting will mean you’ll suffer defeats. Only those who persevere, who keep fighting over years, will experience victory.
—Gerald Durley
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