By Dr. Denise Strothers, Pastor Harold Dugger, Ismail Royer and Chelsea Langston Bombino
Edited by: Kailena Anderson, Mary Kathryn Daigle and Meg Biallas Henry
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part article series which was adapted from a webinar presentation featuring members of CPJ’s Sacred Sector. The text has been edited for brevity and clarity.
[Chelsea Bombino]: Thank you so much. I think Ismail’s point is a great transition to our final panelist Reverend Harold Dugger. As Ismail mentioned, nonprofits face real challenges with respect to overcoming a lack of funding and resources, but religious non-profits also have to navigate potential religious biases, especially minority religious nonprofits operating in sometimes hostile circumstances as Ismail described. African American and Hispanic communities are often supported by their religious organizations, but some of those institutions themselves are facing an increased economic, spiritual, and financial fallout from COVID-19. So with that I want to transition to Pastor Dugger to take up this question. Pastor Dugger leads a congregation in Capitol Heights and his congregation has several social outreach programs working with government and organizations of different faiths. . Pastor Dugger, can you speak a bit on the kind of unique challenges and opportunities posed by COVID-19 for your congregation and ministries?
[Pastor Harold Dugger]: Thank you. I came to the First Baptist church in 2000. Though we are in the suburbs, we have some unique challenges as an African American congregation and community. The Bible says God took the blood of one man and made all men, so I tried to look around me to see who’s in our communities and what they needed. Regardless of color of skin regardless of people’s religious perspectives, or whatever their perspectives are period, we wanted to reach out to them. The culture is evolving but the church has not been evolving like it should. For a long time we've missed out on a lot of things. While we have been faced with a lot of challenges, one of the things that I've come to understand is that the Bible says “my people perish because of a lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). One of the things I've tried to do as a pastor is increased exposure and education to the mission of our faith, and how it goes way beyond the church doors. Actually, COVID has helped us understand that better: what it means to be the church for us. The building is not the church, the building is simply a central meeting place for believers and whoever wants to come in. The church doors have been shy but that does not preclude the mission and the assignment that God has given us. That mission still has to go on. I’ve looked at some of the challenges and how we can continue to carry out the mission that God has given us.
One of these problems is a food desert in Capitol Heights. We do not have a grocery store anywhere in Capitol Heights and the only access people had to food was through the church. our church literally was feeding four to six thousand people a month. Now mind you, my congregation is only about 130-50 people at the most but it was still done with the right resources to meet the needs. So how do we find out where those resources are? What are the needs? We've always had a protocol for engaging in a lot of the political activities and legislation that comes out.
So when I met Chelsea and learned about Sacred Sector, they helped me to expand and to reinforce that platform, especially as it relates to the legislation that comes out. It helped us understand our boundaries and liberties. It also helped us to understand what we are entitled to. One of the things that, as a pastor, that I learned early, in the church that I served in particular, is that they thought that we should not be engaged in a relationship with the government. But there are so many resources that have been put on the table that we would not be able to use if we didn’t. For example, pre-COVID, we were doing a 23 million dollar affordable housing project, being right beside DC that's one of our greatest challenges. We also have challenges with quality schools, in particular Prince George's County has been said to have the most influential African American’s in the nation, living in Prince George's County, but yet we are second in terms of the worst schools. So one of the things I've tried to help our community understand is that progress doesn't just happen. We just can't sit around and think God will make a way somehow. So we asked ourselves, “How does God make a way?” We have to begin to explore those opportunities, so when I met Chelsea, that also helped me to look further at some of the opportunities that were out there. One in particular that President Trump put out was the opportunity zone. We didn't have 23 million dollars, but God blessed us to be able to move forward in this affordable housing project. The only reason why the building is not up is because we are in the middle of COVID right now. We have physical and mental healthcare challenges in our community. A lot of people in our community don't have health care or proper health care. Lack of access to employment, and due to COVID there's a lot of unemployment that’s going on, causes people to have greater need.
But mission doesn’t cease because there’s need, it intensifies and it accelerates the process of what we need to do to serve our communities. We're having people that are dying, not just because of COVID, but because of life in itself. As a result, people are not being able to have funerals, people are not having graveside services, and as a pastor, my primary responsibility is first of all to be able to preach and teach and to comfort the people of God. But I have another role, to meet the needs in the community. In Matthew 25, as Dr. Strothers pointed out Jesus said, “When I was hungry you fed me,” He says, “When I was sick you came to see me. When I was in prison you came to visit me,” He says, “and when I was naked you clothed me.” And some disciples asked him, “When did we see you like this and we did these things?” He said, “What you've done unto the least of my brothers, you've done it unto me.”
Beside my church was a Muslim mosque, and I had a great relationship with them before they moved. In 2010, we had the opportunity of doing $100,000 worth of proceeds for our communities. Many people ask me “well, pastor, look around your property with the Muslim community, shouldn’t you guys be arguing with one another?” I said “No.” I said,”We're not proselytizing, we are here together, we're looking at the community needs and, because we see that common need, we've joined forces together to meet those needs.” I worked at the County Council, I worked in Annapolis with the governor, I worked with organizations such as IAF, Industrial Area Foundation, which is an international and national organization, and PLAN, which is an acronym for Prince George's Leadership Action Network, which is a community roots organization, but we work as a third party to assist in whatever capacities we can as it relates to all of these issues. And I’m grateful for this opportunity to have all these partnerships.
[Chelsea Bombino]: Thank you, Pastor Dugger. Can you tell us how you work across the aisle, with respect to working with other faith-based organizations, to advance their missions or to serve their communities. Maybe you could just talk a little bit more about how you work with the local mosque in terms of serving the Capitol Heights community?
[Pastor Harold Dugger]: Well one of the things that I realize is that we are human beings, and regardless of whether you prescribe to my perspective or not, that's okay, you're entitled what you believe. But when there are people that are hungry, they don't care what we believe, they're hungry. When people are homeless, they don't care what you believe, they want to know that you care. So crossing the aisles of going to talk to our Muslim friends, we first establish a relationship. I let them park on my lawn when they have Ramadan because again, we're in the community together and we believe in sharing resources. Out of that came a great relationship.
[Chelsea Bombino]: Wonderful! Denise or Ismail, do have anything to add about working with organizations across the religious or ideological aisle, perhaps with the public partnerships or other secular community-based organizations that support the work you're doing?.
[Dr. Denise Strothers]: With Healing Communities, we have a training manual that is specific for the Protestant church, the Catholic Church, for other religions, Buddhism and Islam specifically. We cater to whatever organization wants training because having someone incarcerated affects every community and state in the United States and all around the world. Just to provide our services for Christians is not helpful if we want to make a real impact.
[Chelsea Bombino]: Wonderful. Using this example of returning citizens, Ismail would you speak briefly to the distinct position that some returning citizens who have converted to Islam while they are in a period of incarceration may face when they're coming out of incarceration with respect to the social and spiritual supports they may have or lack with their new faith communities?
[Ismail Royer]: Yes. As you mentioned, many people in prison who convert to Islam are very sincere in their desire to to do positive things with their life. But when they come out, they often lack support from the community. To stand in that gap are several organizations, for example, the Inner City Muslim Action Network, Link Outside , and others Unfortunately, these organizations also suffer form a lack of resources. Frankly I'm going to be honest, there's a lack of being in touch from the immigrant community, they're in the second third generations with African American mosques and African American communities. Many of these people are coming from the African American.communities that don't have the same resources that many of the immigrant communities do. There is a lack of communication and connection.
[Chelsea Bombino]: This is a really interesting conversation, one that Sacred Sector will definitely be picking up. Please stay in contact with CPJ if you are interested. If you're interested in being a part of our Sacred Sector learning community going forward, these conversations about how to engage across ideological aisles and mission areas to fully live out our common vision for human flourishing in the public square. We want to thank Upswell and Independent Sector for helping bring this team together today. I really want to thank Denise, Ismail, and Pastor Dugger for joining us today in what we hope is the beginning of a conversation about the role of faith based nonprofits in the public square.
Denise Strothers is a director Healing Communities, and a 2018 Sacred Sector Fellow with the Center for Public Justice.
Harold Dugger is the pastor of First Baptist Church Capitol Heights
Ismail Royer is a director with the Religious Freedom Institute.
Chelsea Langston Bombino is the director of Sacred Sector, an initiative of the Center for Public Justice.
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