Author: Drew Martin

Grimké’s Vital Appeal to the Doctrine of God’s Image in the Post-Civil War South

Francis Grimké’s understanding of personal identity drew deeply from his conviction that all human beings are created in the image of God and therefore worthy of equal honor and respect.

April 19, 2025 by: Drew Martin

Personal Identity

Francis Grimké’s understanding of personal identity drew deeply from his conviction that all human beings are created in the image of God and therefore worthy of equal honor and respect. The beauty of God’s image in all humanity was one of the most frequent themes in both his public writings and his personal reflections. At the same time, he also saw the benefits of familial and ethnic ties. Such relationships, he argued, also could contribute positively to a personal sense of self.

In fact, Grimké taught that the formation of a healthy self-concept demands that people hold on simultaneously to both the universal and the particular aspects of their identity. Self-respect and contentment depend upon a strong sense of self shaped by a commitment to the human race as a whole and also working for the good of one’s ethnic and familial community. The two must go together. While Grimké believed that particular obligations to family and community hold a special place, especially for the oppressed, he also refused to place these obligations in tension with more universal obligations. Throughout his life and ministry, he remained committed even to the nation that oppressed him and the denomination that marginalized him. Yet these same commitments crucially enabled the kind of righteous discontentment that could fuel the perseverance necessary to effect long-term social change in the face of otherwise discouraging circumstances.

God’s Image

The year 1899 in many ways marked the beginning of a period of unprecedented prosperity and influence for the United States on the global stage. The US Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris in February of that year, which brought a formal end to the Spanish-American War. Yet, just as the Black soldiers were clipped out of photographs in the press stories depicting Teddy Roosevelt’s victory, Grimké worried that the “strained relations” between the races in the South reflected unacceptable attitudes on the part of White people toward Black people.1 In June of that year he gave an address in which he appealed to the image of God as the foundation for understanding human identity.2

In that address, Grimké lamented that southerners viewed Black people as their inferiors, and he called upon people to bring their views in line with the teaching of Scripture. As he put it, “According to this book, which we receive as the word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice, God ‘hath made of one blood all nations of men’ [Acts 17:26].” All people share the same blood, and this reality reflects the teaching of Genesis that God created all human beings in his image. Therefore, there “isn’t a hint or suggestion” of, or even anything that could be “twisted” into an argument for, the superiority of one race over another. Grimké rejected the attempt of southern Whites to make such an argument in “dealing with the race question.”3

After laying this foundation, he proceeded to connect the image of God to both the law and the gospel. If all people were created in God’s image, then the same “moral standard” applies to all races. The Ten Command ments, the Sermon on the Mount, and Paul’s teaching on the centrality of love in 1 Corinthians 13 apply equally to all. Even more importantly, the gospel “plan of salvation” is the same for all of God’s people. People of “all races stand upon precisely the same footing.” All are “invited,” and, similarly, all are “equally welcomed.” The apostles were directed to disciple all nations. Citing Galatians 3:28, Grimké drew the obvious conclusion that “the same gospel is to be preached to all.” Drawing from the parable of the good Samaritan, he pointed out that if both the same moral standards and the same gospel message are for all people, then it is not enough for “white men to treat white men as they would like to be treated” or “black men to treat black men as they would like to be treated.” As those created in God’s image, all people stand in relation to all other people by the same rules, and all people stand in desperate need of the same grace.4

Grimké applied this twofold biblical affirmation of the equality of all people with reference to law and gospel to both temporal governance and evangelism. Regarding temporal concerns, he pointed out that the Declaration of Independence of the United States mirrored the biblical teaching that all people “are created equal” and therefore “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights [sic].” The US Constitution also reflected these same principles in guaranteeing to all its citizens the right to vote. These documents echoed the biblical teaching, as Grimké put it, that “civil and political rights” should be shared equally by members of all races. The failures of the United States and of White southerners were “contrary to the Word of God” and contrary to the “expressed provisions and declarations of the Constitution.”5

This multifaceted temporal failure required multifaceted solutions, and one of the most important remedies involved education that needed to be “social, political, moral, and religious.”6 Here it is important to emphasize that this temporal concern needed to be addressed both politically and religiously. Grimké carefully distinguished these facets, but he also refused to separate them. He observed that though editors and teachers certainly had a role to play, “ministers especially” possessed a crucial role as they proclaimed God’s moral law. Ministers, of all people, were aware that racial failures in society and the mistreatment of Black people in the South were “not in harmony with the letter or spirit” of God’s word. Therefore, Grimké wrote, “It is their duty to bring the teaching of that Word to bear upon present conditions, however unpopular it may be to do so.” Having treated the roles of ministers, he then went on to describe the roles of teachers and editors, observing the needed effect of these three forces working together.7

It also is important to emphasize that the role belonged to all Christians as members of the church and not just to Christian ministers.

The family of Christ shares the same Holy Spirit and therefore constitutes one united body.

In addition to “ministers, and elders, and deacons,” “members” also possessed a duty to model these principles as an example for others. The “Ten Commandments” and the “Sermon on the Mount” may be solutions for the “race problem,” but they “must have in back of them a living church—a church made up of men and women who are willing to take them up, and put them on their hearts, and live them out.”8 The duty belonged to all the members of the church in their various roles, and therefore Grimké could say that if the situation in the South failed to improve, the failure would largely belong to the church.9 In addition to these temporal concerns, which belonged to believers and to unbelievers alike, and which should be addressed through the preaching of God’s moral law by church leaders and through the living example of church members, Grimké also applied the doctrine of God’s image to more properly spiritual concerns, including evangelism. In 1916, he gave a provocative address, subsequently printed and distributed in the form of a tract, sensitive to the fact that “it is now almost impossible to get a matter like this into the [mainstream] religious press.”10 Proper evangelism required the whole preaching of the law and the gospel. It also needed direction—namely, the renewal of the person evangelized. Those created in God’s image needed the salvation of Jesus to be “renewed after the image of Him that created” them.11

The failure to see all people as God’s image bearers and the failure to pursue the renewal of all people in God’s image through evangelism were nothing less than fatal to work of evangelism in general and the ministry of the Institute for Evangelism in particular. Such failures contributed to a form of evangelism that was not just flawed but a hypocritical reproduction of false religion. As Grimké preached against such false evangelism, the doctrine of the image of God shaped his conception of the relationship between law and the gospel and its application to both temporal and spiritual concerns.

Narrowing the picture, Grimké also focused his doctrine of the image of God more particularly on other important implications. In his wellknown 1910 address “Christianity and Race Prejudice,” he emphasized the universally shared identity of all human beings. God created all humans in his image, and in that sense all people were created by the same Father. So also, in that same sense, all human beings are siblings. Though he carefully taught the unique relationship of brothers and sisters in Christ, Grimké was comfortable affirming the language of the universal “Fatherhood of God” (as the Creator of all) and the correlated “brotherhood of man.” He put it quite bluntly, in fact, stating, “Literally this is true—men are brothers— the human race is one.” Furthermore, this is not merely an abstract principle but one for daily life. Not only should all people believe that they are blood brothers, but they should also “feel toward each other as brothers” and “treat each other as brothers.” In this regard, Grimké freely admitted his own shortcomings: “I used to speak of the cracker element of the South” as “poor white trash,” he admitted, “but I never do it any more.”12

In addition to the universal, natural bonds that all human beings should recognize, considering their creation in the image of God, Grimké emphasized another sense in which Christians of all races constitute one family. Referring to Ephesians 4:4–6, Colossians 3:11, and 1 Corinthians 12:12–13, he stressed that Christians have been baptized into one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. These realities mean that unity in the family of Christ supersedes other national, ethnic, and class distinctions. The family of Christ shares the same Holy Spirit and therefore constitutes one united body. As a result, Christians share a twofold unity. First, as human beings their family includes all other human beings. Second, as believers in Christ their family includes all other Christians.

It is crucial to pay close attention to Grimké’s twofold understanding of “the Fatherhood of God” and the “brotherhood of man.” Whereas some other proponents of the social aspects of the gospel collapsed these two senses, Grimké’s approach differed sharply from such modernist approaches. For Grimké, unlike the modernists, the image of God shared by all humanity and the special relation shared by Christians are both important and yet always distinguishable. While all human beings are one family according to the first principle, Christians possess an even greater unity with their fellow believers resulting from union with Christ and their shared possession of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the failure of self-professing White Christians to embrace their Black brothers and sisters was a double failure, and because of this it was even more lamentable.13

Grimké also notably relied on the “organic” language so popular in that era, and he connected it with biblical teaching to reject race prejudice and separation. Unity in Christ and the shared possession of the Holy Spirit constitute believers as “one organism.”14 Relying on the imagery of the vine and the branches in John 15, he emphasized that believers in Christ “are all branches of the true vine,” which therefore share the “same life-force.” In other words, “unity with Christ” is inseparable from “unity with one another.” As a result, the American tendency to allow race to lead to “separate churches and separate pews, and separate presbyteries, and separate conferences, and separate cemeteries, and separate every thing” was an affront to the unifying work of Christ and the shared possession of the Holy Spirit. Christian unity included “all races and colors and nationalities,” and Grimké was adamant that this organic unity ought to be expressed in the regular institutional life of the body of Christ.15

Francis Grimké made the biblical teaching of the shared possession of the image of God central to his teaching on personal identity. All human beings created in God’s image are worthy of dignity and respect. Believers in Christ not only share this image with all human beings, but as those redeemed in Christ they possess an additional unity that demands respect. The failure of the American church, and White Christians in particular, to celebrate and pursue the unity clearly taught by Jesus and all the Scriptures was legitimate grounds for righteous discontent.

Notes:

  1. Amy Kaplan, “Black and Blue on San Juan Hill,” in Cultures of United States Imperialism, ed. Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), 219–36. For the history of the “Buffalo Soldiers,” see Bruce A. Galsrud, ed., Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers: Perspectives on the African American Militia and Volunteers, 1865–1917 (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2011).
  2. Francis J. Grimké, “The Remedy for the Present Strained Relations between the Races in the South” (1899), in Works, 1:317–33.
  3. Grimké, “The Remedy for the Present Strained Relations,” 319, 320
  4. Grimké, “The Remedy for the Present Strained Relations,” 320–22.
  5. Grimké, “The Remedy for the Present Strained Relations,” 322–23.
  6. Grimké, “The Remedy for the Present Strained Relations,” 324.
  7. Grimké, “The Remedy for the Present Strained Relations,” 328.
  8. Grimké, “The Remedy for the Present Strained Relations,” 328. Grimké’s explicit inclusion of women with men is notable, especially because this talk came twenty years prior to the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which gave women the right to vote.
  9. Grimké, “The Remedy for the Present Strained Relations,” 331.
  10. Francis J. Grimké, “Evangelism and the Institutes of Evangelism” (1916), in Works, 1:523–28; his reasons for printing the address as a tract appear on p. 527. For more on the context of this address, see chap. 2.
  11. Grimké, “Evangelism and the Institutes of Evangelism,” 524.
  12. Francis J. Grimké, “Christianity and Race Prejudice” (1910), in Works, 1:448. The use of the word “cracker” by Black people as a racial epithet to describe White people began in the 1800s and was common by the end of the century, certainly well before Grimké delivered this address in 1910. The word also carried class connotations as a reference to poor White people, though the racial connotation gradually became more predominant. It is not clear to what extent Grimké had in mind poverty in addition to race. But his awareness that the term carried negative, racialized connotations is clear, as is his regret for using the word. For the developing sense of the word, see Dana Ste. Claire, The Cracker Culture in Florida History (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2006), and especially John Solomon Otto, “Cracker: The History of a Southeastern, Ethnic, Economic, and Racial Epithet,” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 35, no. 1 (1987): 28–39.
  13. Grimké, “Christianity and Race Prejudice,” 450.
  14. Grimké, “Christianity and Race Prejudice,” 452.
  15. Grimké, “Christianity and Race Prejudice,” 452–53.

This article is adapted from Grimké on the Christian Life: Christian Vitality for the Church and World by Drew Martin.

Drew Martin (PhD, Vanderbilt University) is associate professor of systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary. He has served several churches as a pastor and as a church planter, is the author of The Covenant with Moses and the Kingdom of God, and writes on the history of Christian theology.

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Why You Should Know Francis Grimké

Francis Grimké, born enslaved on a plantation in South Carolina in 1850, was one of the most remarkable pastor-theologians of American history.

April 09, 2025 by: Drew Martin

Law and Gospel

Francis Grimké, born enslaved on a plantation in South Carolina in 1850, was one of the most remarkable pastor-theologians of American history. He ministered from 1878–1928, mainly in the nation’s capital, and his story is worth knowing.

Though he endured a difficult childhood filled with injustice at the hands of his enslavers, he had a remarkable mother, Nancy Weston, who made great sacrifices for his education and spiritual growth.1 Following the Civil War, he attended Lincoln University, where he graduated as Valedictorian. After briefly considering a career in law and studying at Howard University, the spiritual awakening he began to experience as a college student eventually led him to Princeton Theological Seminary. There, his theological aptitude earned the respect of both Charles Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield.2 Upon graduation from seminary, he received a call in 1878 to Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, where he served faithfully for the better part of fifty years. That same year, he also married Charlotte Forten of Philadelphia. Her family was well known for their social activism, and her life is another remarkable story also worth knowing.

Perhaps one of the most notable features of Francis Grimké’s ministry relates to his ability to distinguish between the law of God and the gospel of God without separating them. He expressed his views on this matter powerfully in a letter he wrote to the alumni of Princeton Theological, summarizing his many years of ministry:

During these forty years two things I have tried to do with all my might: (1) To preach the gospel of the grace of God, to get men to see their need of a savior, and to accept of Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, the life. If I had to live my life over again I would still choose the ministry, I could not be satisfied in any other calling. (2) I have sought with all my might to fight race prejudice, because I believe it is utterly un-Christian, and that it is doing almost more than anything else to curse our own land and country and the world at large. Christianity, in its teachings, and in the spirit of its founder, stands for the brotherhood of man, calls us to do by others as we would be done by, to love our neighbor as ourselves.3

In these memorable words, Grimké simultaneously distinguished and affirmed the importance of preaching the gospel and fighting race prejudice. He did not treat them as if they were the same thing. Neither did he separate them. This holistic yet differentiated approach to Christian life and ministry is worth knowing.

Civil Rights

Grimké’s commitment to fighting race prejudice led him to a prominent role in the early civil rights movement. He was close to the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who frequently attended Fifteenth Street Presbyterian and asked Grimké to officiate his marriage in 18844. In 1893, he co-founded the Afro-American Council to assist Black clergy who were excluded from the networks that came more naturally to White ministers in the denomination. Alongside Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, he was heavily involved with the Hampton Institute, preaching at its inaugural conference and serving as chair of its Committee on Religion and Ethics from 1898 to 1902. He also served as treasurer and on the executive board of the American Negro Academy, founded by Alexander Crummell to promote African American scholarship and advance the fields of literature, science, art, and higher education. Grimké’s long tenure on the Board of Trustees at Howard University led to an offer to become its president—a role he declined in favor of his pastoral duties.5

Most notably, Grimké played a key role in the Niagara Movement and the founding of the NAACP. He, along with Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Du Bois, was one of six African American signers of the call for the Emancipation Conference, which led to the NAACP's creation.6 Although Grimké chose not to take a leadership role in the organization, he arranged for his brother, Archibald, to serve on the founding committee and later as a vice president.7 Throughout his life, Francis Grimké consistently seized opportunities to advocate for civil rights and speak out prophetically. The essential role of theologically conservative Black ministers like Francis Grimké in the early civil rights movement is underappreciated in both academic scholarship and popular histories. This is a story worth knowing.8

While it may be surprising to some, Francis Grimké’s important role in the early civil rights movement did not prevent him from simultaneously championing the “spiritual nature” of the church’s mission. He frequently taught on this topic, and he also practiced what he preached. The title of one of his most widely circulated and commented upon sermons was based upon the Great Commission of Matthew 28 and entitled “Christ’s Program for the Saving the World.” In that sermon he declared that Jesus Christ would build his kingdom by calling people to repentance for their sins and faith in him as the Son of God and savior of sinners. Grimké acknowledged that some people think a ministry centered upon preaching this gospel message is “foolishness” and should be replaced by other “schemes.” However, he boldly declared that salvation does not come through personal obedience, social improvement, or “secular” knowledge, however useful it might be. Salvation can only come by preaching Christ from both the Old and New Testament Scriptures and calling people to personal faith.9

Faithful Ministry

Grimké’s firm commitment to the spiritual nature of the church’s ministry and his theological commitments to traditional Christian views on the nature of Scripture and the person and work of Christ led him to make careful theological distinctions and thoughtful decisions in his personal ministry. He distinguished between preaching the gospel and fighting race prejudice, but he devoted his life to both. He distinguished between sacred and secular knowledge, vocations, and issues, but he did not place them in opposition. He highly valued individual, corporate, and social aspects of Christian life and piety.

Along these lines, he saw the importance of Christian work in the church, in society, and in the state, but he did not confuse or collapse the different spheres. He also distinguished between his personal and public life and his roles as a Christian and as a Christian minister. He did not place these roles in competition, but he did distinguish them. Practically speaking, this meant that he encouraged his brother, an attorney, to serve formally with the NAACP. As a pastor, he believed his primary role was in teaching the word of God. His preaching frequently touched on moral and social issues, but he also warned Christian ministers not to engage in partisan politics by endorsing specific candidates or policies.10 These are complicated subjects, and Grimké’s passionate, thoughtful, careful example is thought provoking and worth knowing.

Francis Grimké’s fifty years of faithful ministry brought hope and light during one of the darkest periods of American history. The post-Reconstruction years of lynching, Jim Crow, race riots, attempts to make interracial marriage illegal, and countless other moral and cultural failures left a toll on the nation, and too often Christians not only failed to fight such moral tragedies but they perpetuated and condoned them.

Grimké was honest about these realities, and he frequently expressed concern regarding the moral trajectory of the nation. Yet he never gave up hope. His hope, however, was not placed on any experience or even expectation of moral progress. Grimké continued his efforts not because he expected immediate social progress but because he believed that God is ultimate. While he saw no grounds for naive optimism, premature claims about the end of racism or other moral evils, or simplistic assertions that the gospel alone could resolve all social issues in the present age, he also saw no reason for pessimism, despair, or dismissing the power of God working through the gospel. As he wrote, there is “no reason to become discouraged, though at times things may look pretty dark.” Instead, “we are hopeful, and will ever be” because “Jesus Christ has set his kingdom up in the world,” and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.11 He was honest and hopeful at the same time, and his story is worth knowing.

Despite his profound impact, Grimké is often overlooked in discussions of American religious and civil rights history. Yet he was a prominent leader in both the church and the early civil rights movement for over fifty years. The neglect of his legacy is noteworthy, especially considering his influential role as a pastor and his vital contributions to the civil rights movement. Grimké’s life highlights the need for a more inclusive recounting of American church history—one that recognizes the crucial role of Black religious leaders in shaping the nation’s spiritual and social fabric. His writings and activism offer valuable insights into the intersection of faith, race, and justice. His story is worth knowing.

Notes:

  1. Archibald H. Grimké, “A Madonna of the South,” The Southern Workman 29, no. 7 (1900): 392.
  2. James McCosh to unnamed addressee, October 18, 1879, in The Works of Francis J. Grimké, ed. Carter G. Woodson, 4 vols. (Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1942), 1:x; Ethelbert D. Warfield to Francis J. Grimké, December 28, 1922, in Works, 4:357.
  3. Grimké to the class of 1878 of Princeton Theological Seminary, April 27, 1918, in Works, 4:215.
  4. Francis J. Grimké, “The Second Marriage of Frederick Douglass,” Journal of Negro History 19, no. 3 (1934): 324-329.
  5. Henry Justin Ferry, “Francis James Grimké: Portrait of a Black Puritan” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1970), 195, 204, 207, 214-215, 267.
  6. Drew Martin, Grimké on the Christian Life: Christian Vitality for the Church and World (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2025), chapter 10.
  7. Dickson D. Bruce, Archibald Grimké: Portrait of a Black Independent (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993), 104–105; Mark Perry, Lift Up Thy Voice: The Grimké Family’s Journey from Slaveholders to Civil Rights Leaders (New York: Viking, 2001), 332–333.
  8. Daniel R. Bare, Black Fundamentalists: Conservative Christianity and Racial Identity in the Segregation Era (New York: New York University Press, 2021); Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews, African American Evangelicals and Fundamentalism between the Wars (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017).
  9. Francis J. Grimké, “Christ’s Program for the Saving of the World” (1936), box 40-6, folder 309, Francis J. Grimké Papers, Howard University Library, 1-5. See also Francis J. Grimké, “The Nature and Mission of the Christian Church” (ca. 1889), box 40-8, folder 415, Francis J. Grimké Papers, Howard University Library.
  10. Grimké, Works, 3:292–95.
  11. Grimké, Works, 3:330–31.

Drew Martin is the author of Grimké on the Christian Life: Christian Vitality for the Church and World.

Drew Martin (PhD, Vanderbilt University) is associate professor of systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary. He has served several churches as a pastor and as a church planter, is the author of The Covenant with Moses and the Kingdom of God, and writes on the history of Christian theology.

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