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History Lessons: Can One Person Make a Difference?
“What will it take,” she asked, “for you to
answer the call in an unsteady, uncertain,
unstable world … to take seriously the mission
of SPU to engage the culture and change
the world?”
To answer that call means confronting
such profoundly difficult issues as racism and
poverty, said Williams-Skinner. Her address
made very personal the message historian
and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David
McCullough delivered during his visit to
Seattle Pacific less than two months earlier.
“You are a part of history,” he said, “and someday
you will be judged by what you do.”
Just as McCullough noted that history
provides models to “inspire” us and give us
“backbone,” Williams-Skinner pointed new
graduates toward Christians in ancient and
modern times whose lives had literally
changed the world: Abraham, Moses, Esther,
John Wesley, William Wilberforce, C.S.
Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rosa Parks, John
Perkins, Martin Luther King, and others.
These men and women, she told them, had
the same fears and limitations we do, yet they
“answered the call of God to be available.”
A former executive director of the Congressional
Black Caucus, Williams-Skinner
has devoted her life to coaching, training,
and equipping leaders committed to reconciliation
and care for the poor. She knows
how easy it is to believe that one person
can’t possibly make a difference, but she
wouldn’t let graduates — or the rest of us
— off the hook: “I can hear you say, ‘What
can one person do?’ I thought you’d never
ask, because that’s all it really takes. … It only
took one Abraham who believed God enough
for a covenant to be formed that we benefit
from; it only took one Moses to lead the children
of Israel out of Egypt and toward the
Promised Land … .”
This issue of Response includes a variety
of stories from America’s past, including
Abraham Lincoln’s struggle for justice and
reconciliation, the Victorian days of gas lighting,
and the history of SPU’s Camp Casey.
Leading the issue is an in-depth interview
with McCullough, who describes history as a
source of pleasure, strength, and understanding
— particularly in this “very uncertain,
dangerous time.”
In such a time, Williams-Skinner’s urging
of graduates to “go to the barrios, the ghettos,
and the white poor areas of our world” is
more important than ever. How people of
faith respond to the challenges and complexities
of this moment in history will have
implications far beyond what we will know
or understand in our lifetimes.
Note: To listen to Barbara Williams-Skinner’s Commencement address,
click here.
What Do You Think? Don't be shy!
We'd like to hear your opinion about Response or
any articles printed in the publication. To tell us what you
think, send email to response@spu.edu. You may also write Editor, Response, Seattle
Pacific University, 3307 Third Avenue West, Suite 116, Seattle,
Washington 98119–1922. Letters must be signed and will be
printed as space permits.
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