The credentials of Eboni Marshall Turman, a former assistant to the most recent pastor, Calvin O. Butts III, include a professor role at Yale Divinity School, a Master of Divinity and doctorate from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a minister for Christian education position at Abyssinian.
Over its 215-year history, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City has earned a reputation as the flagship of the Black church in America.
Based in Harlem, it became a famous megachurch with the political rise of the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. perhaps the most influential of the many men who have led the congregation. Powell, pastor from 1937 to 1972, served in Congress for 26 years.
Among the countless believers making Abyssinian their spiritual home was Eboni Marshall Turman, who came to believe she could become the
The process was the same for every candidate, she said, adding that her job was to tell the committee to set their biases aside. Some wanted an older person, or a younger one; some wanted the candidate to be married and others wanted them to have existing connections to Abyssinian, she said.
She took issue with the lawsuit’s accusations against her own interviewing of Marshall Turman. Grant explained that every candidate was asked a series of common questions, and additional ones tailored to each person were asked as well. Grant said Marshall Turman was asked certain questions that other candidates did not get “because she was the only woman” candidate.
When Butts died in October 2022, after a bout with cancer, Marshall Turman felt that God had called her to the moment.
She wrote an application to Abyssinian’s senior pastorate that reflected her credentials, including a Master of Divinity and doctorate from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and experience on the Abyssinian staff as a minister for Christian education.
Butts called her the best assistant he had ever had, and the smartest, too, according to the lawsuit.
Marshall Turman was among those invited to apply.
But after not making it to the final round, she alleged in a Facebook post on Sept. 23, 2023, that the hiring process was tainted by secrecy and gender bias. She contended that Abyssinian deacons had worked alongside “an energized group of Morehouse supporters and committee leadership to systematically eliminate all female applicants from the pool of candidates.”
“I write only to underscore that gender bias has no place in God’s house,” Marshall Turman continued in her post. “Moreover, gender bias is illegal in the City of New York in 2023 no matter the prior legacy of the organization involved.”
Among the remaining contenders for the open senior pastor job are the Rev. Dr. Kevin Johnson, formerly of the historic Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, and Derrick Harkins, who was recently working for Marcia Fudge at the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development.
For years, as detailed in the book, “Witness: Two Hundred Years of African American Faith and Practice at the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, New York,” women’s treatment in the church has been an unsettled issue among its members.
In her book, “Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church and the Council of Chalcedon,” Marshall Turman critiqued the Morehouse social gospel tradition, even interviewing Butts.
In terms of Black woman as pastoral leaders, Butts told Turman that at Morehouse the thought of women as pastoral leaders had never crossed his mind. “It was not an issue at Morehouse,” said Butts, in an excerpt from the book. “I just never even thought about it.”
She described finding herself in a world where Black women aren’t listened to, but also one in which their labor is essential to Black survival.
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