Faith apprehends with reason through God’s revelation in nature and sacred Scripture, the existence, truth, goodness, and beauty of God and further relies and depends upon this divine Being for care and ultimate well-being.
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Founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Richard Allen spent his early life in Philadelphia as a slave to Benjamin Chew, the attorney general of Pennsylvania. Financial difficulties forced Chew to sell Allen and his family to Delaware plantation owner Stokeley Sturgis, who Allen later referred to in his 1833 memoir as "a very tender, humane man." Sturgis, himself not a practicing Christian, allowed his slaves to attend Methodist meetings every two weeks. These early experiences led to Allen's conversion to Christianity at the age of 17, and became the foundation for his belief that faith should be accessible to anyone who wished to worship.
The painting Black Methodists Holding a Prayer Meeting by Pavel Petrovich Svinin depicts early 19th-century worship among African American Methodists.
Svinin, Pavel Petrovich, Black Methodists Holding a Prayer Meeting, 1811–ca. 1813, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved from https://www.metmuseum.org
Allen continued to experience a deepening faith, which he shared with fellow slaves. But Sturgis faced vocal disapproval from neighboring slave owners who felt that allowing slaves to engage in religious observation would eventually lead to Sturgis's downfall. Hearing this criticism, Allen determined he would prove by example that the observation of faith improved, not worsened, the behavior and work ethic of those in bondage. He and his brother devised a way to demonstrate the positive effects of faith.
An illustration By the light of the fire, and drew out his bible from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic Uncle Tom's Cabin.
By the light of the fire, and drew out his bible, 1897, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org
A congregation of African Americans gathered in the interior of a church, c. 1860.
Osborn & Durbec, Plantation no. 7 Rockville Plantation Negro church, Charleston, S.C., 1860, Charleston, S.C. : Osborn & Durbec's Southern Stereoscopic & Photographic Depot, 223 King Street. Retrieved from www.loc.gov
This image of African American congregants sharing worship with white plantation owners originally appeared in the Illustrated London News.
Mason Jackson and Frank Vizetelly, Family worship in a plantation in South Carolina, December 5, 1863, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org
Allen's tactic was persuasive, leading Sturgis to boast to others that religion improved the honesty and industry of his slaves. Allen requested that he be able to bring Methodist ministers like Francis Asbury and Freeborn Garrettson to preach for both the slave and free members of the Sturgis home, and his impressed master easily consented. Sturgis, hearing a particularly moving sermon from Garrettson regarding the book of Daniel, interpreted the scripture to mean that God would find slaveholders and slavery as immoral on Judgement Day. A humbled Sturgis denounced slavery, and converted to the Methodist faith. He decided to free his slaves, and helped Allen to purchase his own freedom.
At the age of 22, a free Allen began a career as a traveling Methodist preacher. He ministered across South Carolina, New York, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, working manual labor jobs when he ran out of money. Yet even during times of hard labor, Allen's mind remained on the practice of his faith. "I used oftimes to pray sitting, standing, or lying; and while my hands were employed to earn my bread, my heart was devoted to my dear Redeemer," he later said of this time in his life. "Sometimes I would awake from my sleep preaching and praying."
In 1786, a Methodist elder at St. George's Church in Philadelphia asked Allen to minister to the city's expanding free, African American community. He agreed. Allen held services for black congregants, led prayer groups, and evangelized the blacks of the community. During his time at St. George's, Allen assembled a group of 42 loyal congregants, often leading worship at 5 a.m. and preaching four or five times a day.
But Allen's presence at St. George’s was not met without controversy. While whites and blacks often worshiped together, blacks were typically segregated to specific seating in the church. During one particular service in 1787, a group of black congregants unintentionally sat in new pews reserved for white congregants. While they were kneeling in prayer, a white church member pulled Allen's friend Absalom Jones off his knees, demanding he move. Jones requested to wait until prayer had finished, but the white member continued to insist on his compliance. The incident inspired a mass walkout from the black congregants. “We all went out of the church in a body,” Allen wrote, “and they were no more plagued with us in that church.”
St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1882.
St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, PA, 1882, Matthew Simpson, Editor, Cyclopedia of Methodism; Embracing Sketches of Its Rise, Progress, and Present Condition, with Biographical Notices and Numerous Illustrations–Fifth Revised Edition. Retrieved from https://neatnik2009.wordpress.com
Allen was undeterred. The walkout motivated him to push forward on the establishment of an independent African American church. With Jones's help, a new church was established in a crowded storeroom, with plans to buy land for a building of their own. Methodist leaders resisted Allen and Jones' attempts to establish their own congregation, and threatened them repeatedly with expulsion from the Methodist Conference.
An interior shot of the nave of Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan, c. 1930.
Siegfried, Matthew, AME Church Interior, c 1930, South Adams Street @ 1900 and Ypsilanti Historical Society. Retrieved at https://southadamstreet1900.wordpress.com
Desiring different expressions of worship, Allen and Jones cordially parted ways. Absalom Jones led a faction into the Episcopal denomination, forming a new congregation, St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, in 1792. Allen remained leader of the Methodists. In 1794, Allen’s congregation dedicated a relocated and repurposed blacksmith’s shop for worship services, despite pressures from the white Methodist opposition. The building became the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first Methodist church in the United States specifically for African American worshipers. Five years later Bishop Francis Asbury ordained Allen, making him the first African American to be officially ordained as a deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Still subject to the control of white leaders in Philadelphia, however, Allen fought for more than 15 years to gain full control of the building and his congregation. Finally, in 1816, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on behalf of Allen and his associates. With this victory and the support of representatives from other black Methodist churches, Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME)—the first national black church in the United States. On April 10, 1816, Allen was consecrated as bishop, becoming the first African American in the United States to hold the office.
Allen watched the church membership grow quickly through the early 19th-century. By the time of Allen’s death in 1831, the AME Church had grown to nearly 10,000 members, with congregations spanning across every Northern state, as well as several Southern states. Today, the AME has more than 6,000 churches and over 2 million members. Their growth and vision could never have been achieved without Allen's deeply held belief that every person, black or white, slave or free, deserves the right to observe their faith—a legacy that his church still carries to this day.
The 20th-century director Frank Capra shaped the 1930s and 40s with his popular films, which explored a sense of community and a belonging to something greater than ourselves. Across his body of work is an optimist’s vision of faith in God and humanity, a vision which celebrates the power of one person to rally against forces of evil and support the greater good. Capra posits through his films that no one is beyond redemption and that love of God and neighbor changes the world in remarkable ways.
Francesco (Frank) Rosario Capra was born on May 18, 1897. In 1903, he and his family emigrated from Italy to the United States settling in Los Angeles, California. Immersed in the Italian-Catholic culture of early 20th-century America, Capra’s childhood was defined by a tension between spirituality and the realities of material needs. “I was born into a family that worshipped, first, the Crucifix, and second, a coffee can stuffed with cash, preferably gold,” Capra later explained. “God was our faith, but cash our security.” This struggle between valuing the community and pursuing individual interests became a theme Capra wrestled with throughout his life.
Witnessing his family’s daily struggles, Capra dreamed of experiencing something different. “All the Sicilians where I lived would chitter-chatter in the same language, eat the same food, share the same traditions, the same church, the same values,” he explained. “When I was a teenager, I decided I wanted to see other things.” Seeing education as a way to rise out of poverty, Capra read all the books he could, from science and history to literature and poetry. In 1918, he earned his degree in chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology.
With America’s involvement in World War I, Capra enlisted in the Army and served for the duration. After the war, Capra returned home to L.A., adrift in a bleak, postwar economy. Interested in the burgeoning medium of film, which he had written about during his college studies, Capra held a variety of odd jobs in early Hollywood including work as an extra, film editor, and director of short films. In 1920, Capra landed his first major directing project.
By 1934, Capra had become a national success. Already an Academy Award-nominated director, he experienced his first blockbuster hit in the film It Happened One Night, the first film to sweep the top five Oscar awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress. With this win, Capra became one of Hollywood’s most sought-after directors.
However, health complications plagued Capra shortly after filming. Despite his public optimism, Capra secretly feared the worst. “I thought I was gone many times,” Capra admitted later. Believing that his illness stemmed from a spiritual malaise, Capra found reassurance in the revisiting of his faith. Wrestling with sudden fame, Capra was searching for larger meaning in his life, for something more than commercial success. After his health scare, Capra decided his films needed to deliver a bigger message, and work to address the human condition.
The vehicle for Capra’s message was Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the first of his social comedies. The story centers on the character of Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), a simple-hearted man from Vermont who reluctantly inherits $20 million from a deceased relative. As a result of his inheritance, Deeds battles a series of financial opportunists from the big city hoping to capitalize on his goodwill and naiveté.
In the film, the morally unshakeable Deeds decides to spend his money on farms that employ the homeless. This gesture lands him in court, accused of insanity by unscrupulous relatives who want to use his fortune for their own selfish gains. During his courtroom defense, Deeds makes a speech defending his desire to help the downtrodden.
Film critics saw the character of Deeds as an allegorical version of Franklin D. Roosevelt defending the New Deal, which many political opponents viewed as a waste of money on the poor and unemployed. But Capra’s vision was much less subtle: “It was the rebellious cry of the individual being trampled to an ort by massiveness—mass production, mass thought, mass education, mass politics, mass wealth, mass conformity.” The story of a virtuous, forthright character who triumphs over the obstacles of greed, corruption, and maliciousness resonated with audiences. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town earned Capra his second Oscar for Best Director in 1937.
Capra felt the weight of his success keenly, burdened by what he perceived as heightened social responsibilities. As a result, he began writing a series of essays that revealed his thoughtfulness as a filmmaker, and his growing need to express more than frivolous entertainment in his work. He called on other creatives in the industry to buck the system, and “have the artistic guts to make only the pictures they want to make, or go into the business of making pictures for themselves.”
Capra, locked in business dealings with Columbia, struggled to take his own advice. However, he still managed to express his vision through movies like, You Can’t Take It with You. The 1938 film focuses on Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), a stenographer with an eccentric family who values family over money, and her fiancé Tony Kirby (Jimmy Stewart), the vice-president of a powerful company owned by his wealthy, industrialist father (Edward Arnold). The elder Kirby, dealing in the trade of weapons, needs to buy one last house in a twelve block area—which happens to be owned by Alice's grandfather.
On its face, a story about two families from very different worlds coming together through an unlikely marriage, Capra admitted he “also saw something deeper, something greater.” He believed the story “could prove, in theatrical conflict, that Christ’s spiritual law [love] can be the most powerful force in anyone’s life.” This is illustrated in a scene where the whole neighborhood comes together to pay court fines for Alice’s grandfather when a whacky family fireworks project turns out to be illegal.
But the most direct expression of Capra’s belief in the sanctity of communion with God comes in the climax of the film, as the elder Kirby begins to understand the grandfather’s view that he’s wasting his life by pursuing empty riches. "Maybe it'll stop you trying to be so desperate about making more money than you can ever use,” the grandfather (Lionel Barrymore) tells Kirby. “You can't take it with you, Mr. Kirby. So what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends."
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
You Can’t Take It with You—the first of Capra’s films to feature his name above the title—became a hit, winning him his third Best Director Oscar. More importantly, it solidified Capra’s larger message for audiences: that though the world may be filled with villains, through the support of family and community, simple human decency prevails. This theme would appear again and again in his later works.
In 1939, Capra took on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The story focused on idealistic Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart), appointed to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy. Smith, who Capra later equated to “a young Abe Lincoln,” has an idea to create a national camp for Boy Rangers. However, his enthusiastic work exposes unethical behavior in the political world, nearly crushing the hero’s optimism and determination.
In a climactic moment, Smith navigates the turbulent waters of the Washington political machine through a powerful filibuster that includes citations from the Declaration of Independence and the Bible, including 1 Corinthians 13 and Matthew 22:39. Smith is triumphant, rallying the support of the common man and revealing the misdeeds of the corrupt. One of Capra’s most patriotic films, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington reveals the director’s continuing belief that an honest man can work against the odds to triumph over evil.
Released just as countries were preparing to enter World War II, Capra had doubts about the timing of the film. Politicians and movie executives worried that the message of the movie would turn audiences against Washington at a time when they needed them to rally to the American cause. While fretting about the decision, Capra wandered to the Lincoln Memorial, where he witnessed a young boy reciting the Gettysburg Address to an old man. He determined that he had to make the film, if only to have a scene like the one he had just observed.
“The more uncertain are the people of the world, the more their hard-won freedoms are scattered and lost in the winds of chance, the more they need a ringing statement of America’s democratic ideals,” he later said of making this film. “It is never untimely to yank the rope of freedom’s bell.” This sentiment would serve him well as he left Hollywood in 1941, ready to answer the call of duty in World War II.
Four days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the 44-year-old Capra rejoined the Army. Instead of entering direct combat, Capra was sent to Washington to work directly under Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, who was concerned that millions of conscripted men, unskilled in military matters, would have little idea about why they were in uniform. Charging Capra as the head of a special division on soldier morale, the director was commissioned to create a series of short documentaries that “will explain to our boys in the Army why we are fighting, and the principles for which we are fighting.” Initially struggling with exactly how to portray this message to soldiers in a way that would engage and educate, Capra finally had a revelation: He would use the enemies’ own films, books, and speeches to show soldiers the principles of freedom they were fighting to protect.
Frank Capra (right) is pictured with British counterpart in production of the film Tunisian Victory.
Anglo-American Co-operation In Full Swing: The Production Of The Film Tunisian Victory.
Photo by Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer/ IWM via Getty Images
Capra’s films for the military, called Why We Fight, became a series of seven short movies initially shown only to soldiers. Each one was carefully scripted by Capra to contain a populist view, making them accessible to any who watched them. Later on, they were used as training films by the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, as well as the British, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders. They were also translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese for allies worldwide, and Winston Churchill ordered them all to be shown in theaters for the British public.
Frank Capra receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall on June 14, 1945.
U.S. Army, Photo of Frank Capra receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, 1945, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success, Joseph McBride. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org.
Upon return to civilian life after the war, Capra created his own movie company, Liberty Films, Inc. Finally given the freedom to make the films he wanted to make, Capra directed the 1946 film, It’s a Wonderful Life. In the film, the character of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), struggling under the weight of a series of misfortunes, makes a wish on Christmas Eve to end his life. An angel (Henry Travers) is sent to earth to make George's wish come true. Through the angel’s vision, told mainly in flashback, George realizes how many lives he has positively impacted, and how the town would have been consumed by evil forces if he had never been there to defend it.
Capra celebrated this film and its message of hope as his greatest creation. The filmmaker earned his last Academy Award nomination as Best Director for the film, and the movie established its legacy as a perennial Christmas classic.
Capra defined himself “as a Catholic in spirit; one who firmly believes that the anti-moral, the intellectual bigots and the Mafias of ill will may destroy religion, but they will never conquer the cross.” His work created an understanding of common life for generations of Americans who watched his films. His vision of faith—as he communicates it through characters like Longfellow Deeds, Jefferson Smith, and George Bailey—is one that believes in man as a creation of God, ennobled for goodness. The virtuous and tireless faith of one individual can overcome even the most overwhelming odds, from mass corruption and greed, to crushing doubt and despair.
