Interior of Sanctuary of Mother Bethel AME in Philadelphia, PA. Brian Kutner.

Approaching America’s 250th

How Philadelphia congregations draw visitors through sharing their heritage

By Annette John-Hall

Walking down Philadelphia’s busy South 6th Street and into the Richard Allen Museum of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, you immediately experience a shift from hectic to holy.

On display in the basement museum is The Rev. Allen’s personal Bible from 1803. There’s also the original pulpit from which Allen preached the gospel that helped grow the church from 20 members in 1794 to 1,272 in 1813. Then there’s the holy of holies that stops you in your tracks: the tomb that holds the remains of Allen, the founder and first bishop of the AME Church; his wife, Sarah; and Morris Brown, the second bishop of the church.

Like the Liberty Bell and Independence Mall, Mother Bethel “is a symbol of freedom,” says The Rev. Carolyn Cavaness, the church’s 53rd pastor. “This story is just as important as our white contemporaries’ stories. Just like they tell the story of Benjamin Franklin and all of those [founding fathers]. We need to tell the story of our founding father.”

Not only was Allen a man of God, but he was also one of the nation’s earliest civil rights activists, working tirelessly for justice on behalf of African Americans both enslaved and free. But it’s not just Mother Bethel that illustrates the spiritual richness of Philadelphia. The city is full of historic churches that through their centuries-old ministries or simply through their longevity (see Christ Church, home church to the signers of the Constitution) make up Philadelphia’s cultural legacy, not only in the faith community but in the city as a whole.

As America closes in on its semiquincentennial—250th birthday—next year, Philadelphia, the “Birthplace of America,” will be thrust in the spotlight once more. Historic sacred places will play a part in the story the city will tell.

But as congregations prepare for America’s milestone celebration, they grapple with a complicated conundrum. How do you bring the past into the present? How do you get people to honor the sacred place’s legacy while incorporating it in modern-day ministry? The answer is easier for some congregations than for others.

Places of worship such as Mother Bethel and Arch Street Meeting House are ideally located in Old City and the Society Hill historic district, where tourists would be naturally inclined to visit museums out of curiosity and convenience.

“In a moment when an administration is seeking to erase history, we are still here and able to withstand it,” Cavaness said.

Proximity to tourist attractions also provides Arch Street Meeting House with an opportunity to tell the whole truth about Quaker history through planned exhibits, says Kayla D’Oyen of the Arch Street Meeting House Preservation Trust.

“We get a lot of questions about the role Quaker abolitionists played in the antienslavement movement and how that translates in civil rights and other movements,” D’Oyen said. “Early Friends were not
abolitionists by any means. Pennsylvania had a huge slave trade that Quakers were participating in. So this idea that Quakers were abolitionists and all the meeting houses were part of the Underground Railroad is definitely looking at history through a rose-colored lens.”

On the flip side, D’Oyen looks forward to sharing the legacy of Quakers who stood at the forefront of social justice: civil rights stalwart Bayard Rustin, abolitionist Lucretia Mott, and abolitionist and educator Sarah Mapps Douglass all came though the meeting house doors. Activists also used the building to plan the March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights in 1979.

Like the imperfect people who created it, history is complicated, its significance evolving with each passing year. Perhaps no church recognizes that fact more than Historic St. George’s United Methodist Church in Philadelphia’s Old City. Founded in 1769, St. George’s is America’s oldest Methodist Church in continuous service. Today, it serves as a repository for the records of Philadelphia Methodist Churches that have had to close. Taylor Schmalz, head curator at St. George’s, is planning a lecture series so that the collections from those shuttered churches can be displayed publicly.

During tours and talks, Schmalz also tells of St. George’s dubious shared history with Mother Bethel. In the late 1700s, the head trustee at St. George’s attempted to remove Allen and Absalom Jones while they were on their knees praying and send them to the balcony, where Black worshippers were relegated. Rather than move, Allen and Jones walked out. “Was this the earliest demonstration against segregation in America?” Schmalz asked. “We just don’t know. But we tell the history to keep it from happening again.”

As discriminatory as the incident was, it empowered The Revs. Allen and Jones to make moves that changed the course of history. Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal denomination and its first church, Mother Bethel, in 1794. Jones established the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in 1792 and became its first rector, thereby becoming the first priest of African American descent in the Episcopal Church. St. Thomas’s congregation was mostly composed of members of the Free African Society, a mutual aid organization created by Rev. Jones and Rev. Allen.

Though St. Thomas, now located in the Overbrook Farms neighborhood of Philadelphia, has a congregation of more than 800 members and boasts a legacy just as significant as Mother Bethel’s, The Rev. Martini Shaw says Mother Bethel has been a lot more effective in promoting its history.

“Do a lot of people know about Absalom Jones? I don’t think so,” Shaw said of his church’s founder. “We can do a much better job of communicating who we are as a church. But it’s kind of indicative of who we are as Episcopalians. There’s an old saying that if you’re an Episcopalian, you’re the chosen, frozen few—very stoic, structured, and organized.”

St. Thomas has had a historical society for more than 20 years, but a once robust membership has dwindled to only three people, making it harder to organize archives and artifacts that the church possesses, director Arthur Sudler said. Not only that, but “it’s difficult to get young people excited about books and archives,” he said. “Young people want a different way to engage.”

Sudler pointed to the innovative work of Michiko Quinones and Morgan Lloyd as a possible solution. Quinones and Lloyd’s interactive website “The 1838 Black Metropolis” chronicles Black life in antebellum Philadelphia. It’s full of stories and resources about the people who toiled and triumphed during the early 19th century. It even sponsors walking tours for kids. Of course, the role that Black congregations played is an important part of the narrative.

It is this type of forward thinking that makes history interesting and contemporary. And more congregations are exploring ways to promote the history that is uniquely their own. For example, Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Episcopal Church, constructed by Swedish settlers in 1699, hosts its annual Lucia Fest, a Swedish holiday tradition celebrating St. Lucia, that draws as many as 600 people to the church in Philadelphia’s Queen Village neighborhood.

“I love the idea that we have this connection to generations that have gone before, and we are welcoming people into this tradition that dates back centuries,” The Rev. Chris Micklewright, Old Swedes’ rector, said.

Additionally, Tindley Temple United Methodist Church in South Philly is in the process of reimagining how to leverage the music made famous by its founder, The Rev. Charles Albert Tindley. “I’ll Overcome Someday,” arguably one of Tindley’s greatest gospel compositions, is credited as the basis for the world-renowned American civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”

“The question is, how do we use our [musical] platform to become that ‘beacon on Broad Street’ again?” The Rev. John T. Brice, Tindley’s pastor, asked. “We certainly were in 1925, but how do we become that beacon again in 2025?”

To be sure, Philadelphia’s historic congregations, with their varied origins and traditions, are uniquely qualified to add a fascinating layer of history to the nation’s semiquincentennial celebrations. But despite the differences among sacred places, the one thread that connects them is its believers, who are rooted in faith—that living, breathing thing that transcends the test of time.

“We honor church history while at the same time meeting people where they are. How many people can we be kind and generous to?” asked The Rev. Bill Wilson, pastor at St. George’s. “You preach the gospel, and the gospel does the rest.”

Historic street scene outside Arch Street Meeting House in Philadelphia’s Old City neighborhood. Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections.