Celebrating differences through education

After attending the BJC Fellows Seminar in 2022, the Rev. Dane Martin knew he couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore. As the youth and college minister at Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., he created a program to introduce college students to new ideas and prepare them to interact with the world in different ways. He spoke to Dr. Sabrina E. Dent, director of the BJC Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation, about why he created this program and how others can bring learning to their community.

DR. SABRINA DENT: You’ve talked about the BJC Fellows Seminar as a formative experience for you. When you left that week in Colonial Williamsburg, what were you feeling?

REV. DANE MARTIN: The preparation before the Seminar — such as reading the books in advance — coupled with the intensive week featuring conversations with the authors, BJC staff and others who are engaging the work of faith freedom for all, helped me gain a broader perspective of history and where our nation has been, where it is now and where it could be going. It allowed me to see beyond my more narrow scope of what I was looking at in my particular job.

And as I stepped out of the intensive week and went back to “everyday life,” I couldn’t help but allow that to kind of wash over me and continue to influence what I was doing here in North Carolina, working at a church. It called me into looking around and asking questions: What does Christian nationalism look like in my own setting? My church? My city? My state? What is my role in faith freedom?

And so I started small, doing a Bible study with some of our youth and young people. And that was fine. But what’s next? If we go through the BJC Fellows Program and we do what is asked and required, then what? And that’s the question I continued to ask myself, leading me to develop a three-day program to take college students to Washington, D.C.

DR. DENT: How does your program work?

REV. MARTIN: The trip is centered around questions: What does it look like when religion is suppressed, and what does it look like when religion suppresses?

Our three main places we visit are the Holocaust Museum, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and BJC.

We look at those questions through the scope of the Holocaust Museum, asking what does it look like when one religion is said to be horrible and is stereotyped, trying to be knocked off the planet by others?

We visit the NMAAHC, asking what does it look like when a religion is in power and subjects others to their rule and slavery?

And so we take these two things and ask, “What does it look like when religion can go wrong, in a sense, in two ways: where one is pushed up and pushes people down, and one is pushed down to try to be removed?” And we allow them to engage in the wrestling of that.

We also got to hear about BJC’s work and mission, and we took a tour of the Supreme Court. We toured the Capitol and talked about how this is where our government is housed and where they do their work. And we couldn’t help but talk about the insurrection a little bit, because that was something significant in recent memory for those students.

It’s really interesting when you’re walking in the city and seeing the Capitol and the various monuments — the conversations just kind of bubble up. How do we wrestle with the fact that D.C. was built by slaves? How do we reconcile things we learned at our various sites? What do we do with that?

The conversations were really interesting. Each time, it was a matter of talking with students at the end of the day, asking what they learned or what’s impacting them right then. There were a variety of things shared, particularly from experiencing the Holocaust Museum and the NMAAHC. And at the end, the questions were, “Where do you see overlap in those two? Where do you see the similarities that are hitting us?”

DR. DENT: One of the great things about what you’ve created is that you’re focused on understanding a full perspective of history, including stories often not told in our history books. Sometimes it’s not until people actually see the evidence of what history has shown us that they can really apply the lessons to life. If we don’t learn from history, it repeats itself, and our liberation is tied together.

REV. MARTIN: My family comes from a family of Holocaust survivors, so when we look at that history with the group, we really home in on how the Holocaust was a huge atrocity and how there are many other types of things that have happened like that since, which get less press. How do we prevent these things from happening? It’s an opportunity for me to speak into that a little bit, too.

DR. DENT: Was there a lot of interest when you launched this program? How did you share it with your church, and did it come together just like you envisioned?

REV. MARTIN: I think one of the things that really stuck with me after the BJC Fellows Seminar is the nature of being Baptist. There’s a reason why BJC has kept in its name the word “Baptist” and leans into that Baptist heritage. I remember reading about how some of these Colonial Baptist ministers were advocating for religious freedom, not to benefit them, but to benefit all.

Touching on the Baptist heritage was a way to connect the congregation to the work, to share that this is part of our history. We talked about John Leland, a Colonial Baptist who advocated and spoke to people in power in our government to help navigate toward what was eventually passed down to us.

We reached out to college students that we’ve been connected with and said, “Hey, let’s engage you in something that may be very different than what you’re already getting exposed to on a campus.” College is a great opportunity for growth, development and exploration, but I don’t know if we get this kind of growth and exploration unless you really seek it out. So after the spring semester ends, we offer to bring students to D.C. and engage in these conversations.

I love to take big groups. It’s fun. But, the number of sign-ups was small. And what I realized is, you use what you have, and you go with it, because it provides opportunity for more one-on-one conversations and more engagement by the whole group together instead of a lot of pocketed conversations — which can be fine, but in this way, we’re helping students think a little differently and look at things a little differently, and so we can help frame it for them, too.

DR. DENT: In those conversations, do you hear things that surprise you?

REV. MARTIN: I think a big thing that our students were wrestling with this trip was Christian nationalism. And I wouldn’t have picked that necessarily, but they were trying to wrestle with this piece about separation of church and state. Where’s the line?

We talked about how we want to recognize — in the right forums — the sacrifices people have made for our country. We want to recognize that because it’s an important piece of our country’s history. At the same time, we don’t want to put our country into a place of worship, where we’re worshipping our country or causing others to feel ostracized because we imply this is a God of America.

Our students were really struggling, not to understand Christian nationalism, but more of trying to figure out how to navigate it — to not enter into it, but also to be respectful and to be faithful in their own religious walk, too. At the end, I said that the struggle is still with me, too, in trying to figure this out and walk the slippery slope. I don’t have every answer, and I think we have to figure it out in conversation and in relationship together.

To be aware, though, is the first step. When we have this awareness and understanding of the pitfalls, then we can try to move forward in healthy ways.

Our students got a taste of that, but they got a taste of also trying to figure things out. How do I see this in my own life? How do I see this when I’m in school and when I’m a young adult living on my own? And even when I’m sharing at the end of this trip, I got comments from parents saying they learned, too. That’s the hope — that it’s a trickle-down waterfall that infiltrates and impacts people in positive and healthy ways, through small conversations and these small moments of education and growth that people can have.

DR. DENT: I think what you’re doing is so powerful, and it excites me even more to see how the BJC Fellows Program had such an impact in your life. You’ve really asked yourself the question, “How can I continue to pay this forward?” and you’re sharing with a younger generation, inviting them to think deeply about religious freedom, history and the role of religion in the public square in a broader sense. What would you say to others who want to take that same initiative?

REV. MARTIN: Start small — with whatever small looks like in your setting. I don’t have a huge budget, but I realized that entry for a lot of these places in D.C. is free or maybe a dollar for a service fee. So, why not? If this is truly important to you, then start somewhere. The importance really hits when we’re willing to allow this to infiltrate to others and to share and to spread.

When I got back from the BJC Fellows Program, one of the first things I did is collaborate and have conversations with others in our community. I talked about the program and shared what I learned, and that allowed other conversations to happen. The trips are great. I love doing the trips. But it’s three days once a year, and there’s more to be done.

Start just showing up and learning and growing and seeing what’s going on in your city, in your town, in your state. That helps you be more informed, and it helps you know if you’re speaking into something that is speaking to the choir or if it is something that needs to have more relational equity built up and needs more dialogue.

It’s a both/and thing: Take groups and do things with young people who are excited and ready to absorb things, but don’t do that on an island. Collaborate and be part of things in your own spaces and communities so that those conversations can just be natural things that grow and happen because you’re overlapping so much.

DR. DENT: With all you’ve shared and with all of your experiences, I’d love to ask you how you think about faith freedom for all and what that can look like in our world.

REV. MARTIN: I hope that one day we can just look into spaces in our country where we love and respect each other, no matter where we are in our faith journey — no matter what that looks like or what kind of faith that is, or if it’s no faith at all. We can mutually respect and care about each other as human beings who love this country and are excited about what is happening in each other’s lives, and we can celebrate each other.

I think part of faith freedom for all is celebrating our differences and appreciating the nuances of who we are as the human race. And so I think that is my hope — that one day we don’t judge each other based on our faith or that we don’t stereotype it; that we look at each other as fellow journey people, just taking the next step in life. And that is my hope, that is my prayer, that is what I look forward to one day.

Have an educational program you want to share with us? Let us know what you’re doing! Contact the BJC Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation at [email protected].

If you want to bring a student group to BJC, go to BJConline.org/visit-bjc.

This article first appeared in the summer 2024 edition of Report from the Capital.  You can download it as a PDF or read a digital flip-through edition.