Black Prayer 4

Giving Thanks for a Committed Life

A Prayer by Martin Luther King

O God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee for this golden privilege to worship thee, the only true God of the universe. We come to thee today grateful that thou hast kept us through the long night of the past and ushered us into the challenge of the present and the bright hope of the future. We are mindful, O God, that man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of things and humanity is not God.

Bound by our chains of sin and finiteness, we know we need a savior. We thank thee, O God, for the spiritual nature of man. We are in nature but we live above nature. Help us never to let anyone or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Give us the strength to love our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us.

We thank thee for thy Church, founded upon the Word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray, but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended on us and not upon thee. Then, finally, help us to realize that man was created to shine like the stars and live on through all eternity.

Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace, help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all of God's children -- Black, White, Red, and Yellow -- will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the kingdom of our Lord and of our God, we pray. Amen.

Source: Harold A. Carter's Prayer Tradition of Black People (1985)

* * * * *

update 23 June 2008

Harold A. Carter grew up in the 1940s, in Selma, Alabama. He was the third of five children (two boys and three girls) in the home of Reverend Nathan Mitchell Carter, Sr. and Lillie Belle Carter. His father--Nathan Carter--was a Baptist pastor and preacher, and also professor at Selma University, a Baptist School founded in 1878 by Baptists of Alabama. His father taught Bible and theology.

In the late 1950s, Harold Carter first earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary (Chester, PA). At some point between the mid 1950s and 1968, Harold Carter was for a full year a pastoral assistant to Martin Luther King. In 1987 (?), Carter earned a Ph.D. in Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry in the same month from Colgate Rochester Divinity School. He was (1959-1964) a pastor at Court Street Baptist (Lynchburg, VA) and has been pastor since 1964 of New Shiloh Baptist (Baltimore, MD).

. Dr. Carter led New Shiloh into a church and Family Life Center, Sunday, May 27, 1990. Over the years of his ministry, he has led citywide crusades in evangelistic ministry across America and in many countries abroad. Dr. Carter's first book "The Prayer Tradition of Black People" continues to be a standard work in the Black Spiritual Anthology. A more recent work, "Building Disciples in the Local Church," is being used by churches near and far, to build revival fires in the local church. His Book, "America, Where Are You Going?" has also proven to be a powerful call for America to examine where she is going in light of the Christian faith, so often compromised and even ignored in our present day world.

Harold Carter thinks of himself as a minister, "Determined to Live With Christ." Dr. Carter is married to Dr. Weptanomah W. Carter, noted speaker, author and founder of several ministries in New Shiloh Baptist Church.