Francis Grimké: A Model For Christian Social Engagement

Francis Grimké’s life is the stuff movies are made of. Remembered as a “Black Puritan,” Grimké journeyed from slavery in South Carolina to seminary at Princeton. His story offers an almost unparalleled glimpse into the complexities of race, pastoral ministry, and politics during Reconstruction and Jim Crow. For too long, however, Grimké’s legacy has been overshadowed by either his more famous abolitionist great-aunts (“the Grimké sisters”) or his older brother, Archibald, a Harvard-educated lawyer who helped found the NAACP.

In Grimké on the Christian Life: Christian Vitality for the Church and World, Drew Martin, associate professor of systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary, closes a gap. He uncovers the theological vision that shaped Grimké’s ministry at one of the most influential churches in Washington, DC.

Grimké was neither strictly conservative nor comfortably progressive but instead a theologian who navigated between polarized extremes. Through careful distinctions—such as between the gathered and scattered church, and spiritual and temporal kingdoms—Martin highlights Grimké’s remarkable ability to maintain gospel clarity while actively confronting societal injustices. He shows that Grimké’s example is relevant for contemporary Christians as we live out our faith in a complex society.

Grimké’s Story

Grimké was born in 1850 as the son of a wealthy white plantation owner, Henry Grimké, and an enslaved woman named Nancy Weston. He experienced firsthand the brutal injustices of slavery. After his father’s death, Grimké and his brother Archibald were treated harshly by their half-brother and his wife, who forced them into labor and punished any resistance severely.

Following emancipation at the end of the Civil War, Grimké attended Lincoln University, becoming valedictorian of his class. He went on to study under Charles Hodge at Princeton Seminary. In 1878, Grimké began his long ministry at Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, a notable church with a distinguished congregation that included some of the city’s most prominent black leaders. Apart from a four-year interruption between 1885 and 1889, Grimké ministered at Fifteenth Street until 1927, serving nearly 50 years.

Grimké was also deeply engaged in broader social activism, helping form the NAACP. He’s arguably the leading African American theologian of the Reformed tradition of his generation, if not of all time. His life and writings offer a fascinating perspective into the Christian life.

Law and Gospel

According to Martin, Grimké’s ministry can be framed using the classic Reformed distinction between law and gospel. In traditional fashion, Grimké saw the moral law as indispensable to both evangelism and discipleship, acting as a mirror that reveals human sinfulness and serving as a guide for Christian living.

In a more nuanced fashion, Grimké viewed the gospel in two ways: broadly, to include ethical imperatives like love for neighbor, and narrowly, to emphasize Christ’s saving work. For Martin, both aspects of the gospel were necessary for Grimké’s proclamation of salvation in Christ and ethical living.

Grimké viewed the gospel in two ways: broadly, to include ethical imperatives like love for neighbor, and narrowly, to emphasize Christ’s saving work.

Martin’s “broad” and “narrow” categories reveal potential ambiguities. On the one hand, they help explain why Grimké often referred to social and ethical demands under the umbrella of the “gospel.” For instance, Grimké asserted that the gospel includes teachings on the “fatherhood of God” and “brotherhood of man,” equating these ethical demands with the gospel message itself (28–33). On the other hand, Grimké’s inclusion of ethical imperatives as “gospel” seems to risk conflating law and gospel at points. It’s a good reminder that our appropriation of historical sources should always be careful and critical.

Model for Christian Social Engagement

Martin articulates Grimké’s vision for the mission of the church through a careful delineation between its “gathered” and “scattered” aspects, as well as the distinction between the spiritual and temporal kingdoms. Grimké emphasized the gathered church’s primary mission as narrowly defined by the Great Commission—focusing on evangelism, discipleship, and proclamation of the Word.

Grimké celebrated the “material effects” (Christianity’s influences) on society yet kept them in their proper place as “secondary consequences” rather than primary goals (130–31). He argued that the church mustn’t “waste its time, energy and resources on side issues, on matters of little or no importance in their bearing on the ultimate result” (131).

In this, Grimké stood in stark contrast to the theological modernists and advocates of the social gospel of his day, who, in Martin’s view, “made social unity and racial equality the center of the church’s kingdom mission” (131). Grimké affirmed these ideals and agreed with the social agendas of many theological liberals (for example, advocating against racial discrimination). Yet he differed because he “taught that they were natural consequences and not the mission itself” (132).

At the same time, Grimké insisted the mission of the scattered church—individual Christians at work in the world—extends broadly into society through diverse vocations and ethical living. Thus, Grimké avoided both reducing the church to a political advocacy group and restricting Christians’ engagement in society.

Though he boldly tackled political subjects, Grimké refused “to make the pulpit a platform from which to discuss all sorts of subjects” (142). Martin illustrates how Grimké differentiated between the roles of the gathered and scattered church in addressing moral issues in society: “The church (gathered) has a clear command from Jesus to teach the moral principle that murder is wrong. On the political questions of how reduce or punish murder, the church has no explicit precept, but individual Christians (the church scattered) have an obligation to employ wisdom alongside non-Christians to form better human laws” (206).

Some of the categories Martin uses to explain Grimké’s thought don’t seem entirely organic. However, Martin’s categories move the book beyond the safe confines of historical description into prescription for today’s readers. The result is a helpful set of guideposts for navigating complex contemporary realities.

Significant Historical Contribution

Grimké on the Christian Life would have been an achievement if it had merely used readily available resources to introduce Grimké to an expanded audience. But Martin didn’t content himself with information from Grimké’s four-volume Collected Works. His research extends to Grimké’s unpublished personal papers held at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. Thus, we learn that the posthumously published Works excludes some of Grimké’s most insightful and acclaimed writings on the church’s mission.

Grimké differentiated between the roles of the gathered and scattered church in addressing moral issues in society.

Most notably, his Works omits his famous address “Christ’s Program for Saving the World” (1936), which emphasized the church’s “narrow mission” of preaching the gospel and teaching obedience to Christ over a “broad mission” of social activism. Martin explains that “readers of Grimké’s collected works should recognize that these volumes are not necessarily representative of the full scope of his teaching emphasis” (144). The result is a more accurate and complex portrait of one of DC’s greatest theologians.

Martin offers a contextually sensitive examination of Grimké’s life and writings through a theological and ecclesiological lens. Meanwhile, ample footnotes on primary and secondary literature give eager readers handholds for future historical research. Most significantly, Grimké on the Christian Life provides a roadmap for pastors and church leaders as they address social problems without drifting from the church’s mission.