Franklin Robert M. 1954–

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Robert M. Franklin 1954–

Minister, educator, lecturer, writer

In 1993, when Ebony magazine editors were conducting an extensive media poll of black Americans considered to be influential, they chose Reverend Robert Michael Franklin for their “Honor Roll of Great Preachers.” Franklin, a Church of God in Christ minister, has not only contributed to the spiritual health of Americans, but is also a respected religious scholar who specializes in studies of the black church, ethics, religion, and politics. During a career that has spanned two decades, Franklin has written a commendable book and a variety of articles on these issues, while putting his faith into practice in innumerable ways.

On December 25, 1995, Franklin participated in a Public Broadcasting System (PBS) NewsHour special on religion in America, hosted by Margaret Warner. When she asked Franklin about the communal role of religion, he responded, “One of the extraordinary things going on in the African American church community around the nation is an effort to reinvigorate the extended family throughout this nation.” Franklin went on to explain how African Americans are concerned with the erosion of traditional family structures and values and how the church is trying to solve these problems.

Franklin’s work, whether preaching or teaching, has been to promote solutions to problems in the black community.

Franklin, the son of Robert and Lee Ethel McCann Franklin, was born on February 22,1954. He was raised in Chicago, attended Morgan Park High School, and worshipped at the St. Paul Church of God in Christ. He enrolled at Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, Georgia, where he majored in political science and religion. Franklin spent his junior year studying at the University of Durham in England, and finished his bachelors degree in 1975.

Franklin spent time traveling through North Africa and the Soviet Union before pursuing a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School. At Harvard, Franklin’s master’s thesis examined why men leave the churches, a subject of enduring interest that would come into focus nationally in 1995, when hundreds of thousands of African American men took part in the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. When asked about the Million Man March during the PBS NewsHour, Franklin told Warner, “This is an extraordinary event in the history of the recent American religion, because here

At a Glance…

Born Robert Michael Franklin, jr., February 22, 1954, in Chicago, IL; son of Robert Michael and Lee Ethel (McCann) Franklin; married Dr. Cheryl Diane Coffney (an obstetrician/gynecologist), 1986; children: Imani Renee and Robert Michael, III. Education: University of Durham, England, B.A., 1975; Harvard University Divinity School, MDiv., 1978; University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1985. Attended Morehouse College. Religion: Pentecostal.

St. Paul Church of God in Christ, Chicago, IL, assistant pastor, 1978-84; St. Bernard’s Hospital, Protestant chap-Iain, 1979-81; Prairie Street College, psychology instructor, 1981; University of Chicago, Divinity School, religion and psychological studies instructor and director of field education, 1981-83; Harvard University, Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, associate director of ministerial studies, 1984-85, visiting lecturer in ministry and Afro-American religion, 1986-88; Colgate Roches-ter/Bexley/Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, NY, assistant professor and dean of black church studies, 1985-89; Emory University, Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, GA, assistant professor, 1989-91, director of black church studies, 1989—, associate professor of ethics and society, 1991 —; Ford Foundation, Rights and Social Justice, New York, NY, program director, 1995—. Author, Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African-American Thought, Augsburg Fortress Press, 1990.

Addresses: Office—Program Officer, The Ford Foundation, Rights and Social Justice, 320 E. 43rd St., 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10017.

was this tremendous flourishing of spiritual hunger, a quest for meaning, for binding together, for community building, that happened for the most part beyond the bounds of traditional institutional religion.”

Embarked on a Career of Service

With his divinity degree in hand, Franklin embarked on a career of service. For six years he worked as an assistant pastor in the church he worshipped at as a boy, St. Paul Church of God in Christ. During those years he also found time to study social ethics, psychology, and African American religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School, from which he earned his doctorate in 1985. During the early 1980s, Franklin was also the Protestant chaplain at St. Bernard’s Hospital, an instructor in psychology at Prairie Street College in 1981 ; an instructor in religion and psychology, and field educational director. Clearly, he put his education and experience to work.

Franklin has focused on black spiritual heritage while teaching at several institutions. At Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he was the associate director of ministerial studies and later a visiting lecturer in ministry and African American religion. Franklin left his post at Harvard to become a dean and assistant professor of black church studies at Colgate-Rochester Divinity School in New York. In 1989 he became an assistant professor of ethics and society, and director of black church studies at Candler School of Theology, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Wrote about Social Justice

During his tenure at Emory, Franklin wrote Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African-American Thought in which he discusses the ethical tradition of such prominent African American thinkers as Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Franklin explains in the introduction that he chose these African American leaders because their “intellectual and political influence upon past and present Americans could be characterized as monumental.” In a review for the Christian Century, Thomas G. Poole, director of religious affairs and assistant professor of religious and black studies at Pennsylvania Sate University, called the work an “ambitious project…. Franklin assigns each of his subjects a root metaphor which characterizes ‘the central question with which the moralist seemed to be concerned during his life.’” These metaphors are: the adaptive person for Booker T. Washington; the strenuous person for W. E. B. Du Bois; the defiant person for Malcolm X; and the integrative person for Martin Luther King, Jr.

Following biographical sketches of each man, Franklin explains the concept of the moral life and just society that each man represents by using such examples from their speeches and writings as Washington’s speech to the National Education Association in July of 1884 and King’s address to the National Conference for a New Politics in Chicago in August of 1967. Franklin wanted to show these four men’s images as being an authentically free person, a person who could achieve full human potential without the obstacles of culture, society, or self. He maintains that, while the visions of all four moralists merit worldwide attention and scrutiny, King’s vision is more communal, significant, and compelling. Regarding King in particular, Franklin states, “His mission—and the mission of the ongoing movement—was to remind America of its destiny to become a multiracial, multicultural community of compassion capable of inspiring its global neighbors to practice love through justice and power wielding. In order to do this, it must prove that it is capable of granting the goods of citizenship to nonwhites.”

Encouraged Social Ethics

Franklin has long been intrigued by the changes in African American society since the Civil Rights movement. He ended Liberating Visions with the statement, “Personal and social change are inseparable components of authentic and lasting liberation.” His articles speak of this change as the role of black Christianity’s ministry.

In Theological Education, Franklin encourages educators to teach social ethics, using the Civil Rights movement for its continuing lessons. He asserts that most seminarian graduates are “rich in theology but poor in ethics.” He adds that “ministers should be equipped to identify, elaborate, and guide action” with regard to moral and religious dimensions. He feels that after students or individuals confess their first discovery of racial and cultural differences to each other, conversation about these experiences can begin.

Franklin believes cooperation on common projects following conversation is essential for ministry to all of society. Criticism of individuals and projects is then necessary to complete the process of reconciliation. Franklin states in Theological Education that “no matter how broken or fragmented we have been or are now, through Jesus Christ, God has acted decisively to heal and reconcile humanity. As long as we remain engaged in the process, we are God’s agents for doing the work of reconciliation in the world.” Franklin suggests that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is an exemplary figure in the discipline of social ethics to all who would effectively bear the gospel in society.

While he was on leave from Emory University in 1995, the Ford Foundation hired Franklin as the program officer for the Rights and Social Justice Program. The Ford Foundation, incorporated in 1936 by Henry Ford, and later Edsel Ford, to identify important social problems, gives support to international and area studies, including African, Russian, East European, and women’s studies. Operating out of an office in New York City, Franklin is responsible for allotting grants to African American churches that strive, through service, to find solutions to poverty, women’s issues, and the issues of young people. He also educates society about the foundation by giving speeches at various venues, such as his “Partnership for Stronger Communities: The Ford Foundation’s work with African-American Faith-Based Institutions” speech that Franklin delivered on July 12, 1996 at the Kellogg Center, Michigan State University in East Lansing.

When not working with the foundation, writing, or preaching, Franklin enjoys his family, international travel, playing guitar, baroque and Motown music, foreign languages, the literature of contemporary black women and modern European authors, swimming, tennis, racquetball, and walking in the woods. About Dr. Franklin, a friend and ethicist at Princeton University in New Jersey, Dr. Peter Paris, told CBB, “Liberating Vision sums up his thought and practice. … His life has been very consistent; his concern is not just for blacks, but for all of society, and the world.”

Sources

Books

Contemporary Authors, Vol. 135, edited by Susan M. Trosky, Gale Research Inc., 1992, pp. 161-162.

Franklin, Robert M., Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African-American Thought, Augsburg Fortress Press, 1990, pp. 3, 158.

Periodicals

Christian Century, March 6, 1991, pp. 274-275.

Christian Ministry, March/April 1989, pp. 17-19.

Ebony, November 1993, pp. 156-162.

Theological Education, autumn 1989, pp. 43-61.

Other

NewsHour Online, transcripts of the Public Broadcasting System special on religion in America, December 25, 1995; http://web-cr01.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religionAeligion_12-25.html.

Additional information for this profile was obtained from Augsburg Fortress Press, Dr. Peter Paris, and the Ford Foundation.

—Eileen Daily

Contemporary Black Biography