the historic missionary baptist church with Pastor Jonathan F. Lowder, Sr. (ep 3, 12).

From hush harbors to becoming a cathedral of resistance, The Historic St. James Missionary Baptist Church has been asking the same question since 1865: what do we owe the people who don't yet have a place here? Founded by Squire Jehagen, a man who had been held in bondage, in the same year the Civil War ended, St. James has outlasted arson, displacement, and every force that tried to silence it. It housed University of Arkansas students when the university wouldn't. It has fed this community through every generation since Reconstruction. And it is still showing up , organizing prayer vigils for immigrant neighbors swept up in ICE enforcement, running a food pantry that feeds nearly 2,600 people a month, and carrying a prophetic voice that has never been willing to separate Sunday morning from Monday's injustice.Pastor Jonathan Lowder Sr. came to Fayetteville from Georgia with twenty-five years of ministry behind him, shaped by a father who gave away everything he had, tested by grief, and called to a congregation he had never heard of. As an outsider reading this place from the inside, he brings a perspective that those of us who grew up here sometimes can't access. In this conversation, he reflects on what it means to inherit 160 years of resistance, why the question "do you care?" is the only question that matters, and what Northwest Arkansas has the opportunity, and the obligation, to become.Link:  https://www.theunderview.com/the-historic-st-james-missionary-baptist-church-with-pastor-jonathan-f-lowder-srAbout the underview:The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.Send us a Voice Message at https://www.theunderview.com/Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewtheHost: @mikerusch