The Rev. Brad Braxton is a short, unassuming guy who's exceedingly polite.
But when the man climbs into a pulpit, look out. Consider what he said at a King holiday celebration in Winston-Salem back in January 2002, just months after the terrorist attacks on America and the U.S. attack on Afghanistan and long before the Iraq invasion.
"Rev. King would have reminded the nation that there are multiple ways to define terrorism," Braxton said in his booming voice. "While America builds Super Wal-Marts with enough food to feed five cities, one of three people in the world is hungry."
Braxton was in no way excusing the terrorists who attacked our country. What he was trying to do was to remind us that King took literally Jesus' radical messages of peace and soul-searching. What he got was a lot of criticism, including numerous letters to the Journal. Here he was, a boyish-looking black guy in his early 30s, chiding his elders.
"I think this is Braxton's black, Democratic Party attitude coming through," one letter writer wrote.
Braxton shrugged it all off and kept up his work at Wake Forest University Divinity School, that of teaching New Testament studies and the art of preaching. He left Wake Forest for the divinity school at Vanderbilt. And now, a search committee at New York's famed Riverside Church has tapped him to become the next pastor of the church. If the congregation approves Braxton when it votes next month, he'll soon be speaking to the world from the same pulpit used by William Sloane Coffin when he stood up for social justice and against the Vietnam War.
Some of Braxton's critics here will just be glad he's somewhere far away. The Wake divinity school wll take pride in Braxton. "He has been very courageous about a variety of theological and racial issues and has not hesitated to speak up," said Bill Leonard, the dean of the divinity school.
Braxton, the son of a Baptist preacher, will just keep on preaching, just as he's been doing since he was a boy growing up in Salem, Va. He's one preacher who will never put anybody to sleep.
"The church is suffering from some anemic preaching," he told me in 2000, soon after he arrived at Wake Forest.
"The pulpit is an awesome place to be. What an audacious claim, to proclaim that you have a word from God. But the preacher must proclaim that."
By the time he arrived at Wake Forest, Braxton had already accomplished a lot. He began preaching at 12 and was licensed to preach at 15. He studied at the University of Virginia, at Emory University and as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. And most important, he had served as the senior pastor at the nondenominational Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore. He began to develop his preaching reputation there.
He backed his words with action. He started a prison ministry, a service to provide food and supplies for the needy, and an outreach program for families affected by HIV and AIDS.
He'll likely continue that combination of preaching and social action at Riverside, an interdenominational congregation of blacks and whites that worships in a Gothic cathedral in Manhattan. "I certainly would hope to continue in that marvelous legacy of congregational care internally, and bold, courageous, prophetic action externally, for which the Riverside Church has been known now for so many years," he told The New York Times.
It's long been a liberal church. Let's hope being surrounded by a lot of like-minded folks doesn't cause Braxton to lose his edge, the creative anxiety that fuels his preaching.
"My hands still get cold and sweaty every time I stand up to preach," he said back in 2000. "That sense of anxiety … is part of the energy of preaching."
A much bigger audience may be about to experience the energy he honed in Winston-Salem.
■ John Railey writes local editorials for the Journal. He can be reached at
jrailey@wsjournal.com
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