november 10, 2006
"Life is a Warm-up" Says Senate Chaplain
"Life is a warm-up … a rehearsal," Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black said. "If you do not have ethical and moral fitness," in that preparation, he warned, "you disqualify yourself for eternal life."
The man who once tended the faith needs of the Navy, now ministers to the United States Senate. According to Steve Stone of The Virginian-Pilot, Chaplain Black recently brought this message of challenge and duty to the an enthusiastic group at the Bank Street Memorial Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia.
"We've got too many brothers who look too good on the outside and are mud on the inside," Black, 57, said in a deep, resonating voice. "Human beings look on the outward appearance, but God looks in the heart."
The retired rear admiral and former chief of naval chaplains urged the audience to develop inner strength.
According to Stone, Black's visit to Norfolk was a homecoming of sorts. He twice served there during a long naval career that ended when he was called upon to tend a different flock -- the United States Senate.
The Senate, which selected its first chaplain in 1789, chose Black in 2003 as its 62nd spiritual guide. It marked a trio of firsts: never has an African-American, a military chaplain, or a Seventh-day Adventist held the post.
Black's autobiography, From the Hood to the Hill: A Story of Overcoming, was released in August. He has been called "an officer, a leader and a true national treasure," by Admiral Vern Clark, who served as chief of naval operations until July, 2005.
In his remarks in Norfolk, Chaplain Black recalled the 1972 Munich Olympic Games when members of the Israeli team were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists. Eleven athletes and one police officer were slain in the attack.
Chaplain Black explained that the toll would have been higher if not for one athlete who died, holding a door closed as the attackers fired bullets through it, giving time for other athletes to escape.
"I challenge you," he declared, "…to move up to the Olympic level. … You ought to be able to take the loads that would devastate regular folks. There is no limit to the usefulness of one person."
He said it is necessary to fight "the demons" that threaten us, such as the gunman who shot 11 Amish girls October 2nd in a Pennsylvania schoolhouse, killing five.
"That is not psychopathology," Black said. "That is demon possession."
The roots of Black's faith date to his childhood in southern Baltimore, where he, seven siblings and their mother lived in subsidized housing. He accompanied his mother, a devout Adventist, to church and by the age of 9, he was memorizing sermons -- some by Peter Marshall, a Scottish Presbyterian minister who himself was Senate chaplain from 1947 to 1949.
Stone reports that Black began his 27-year naval career in 1976 after he met five sailors who drove from Norfolk to hear him preach in eastern North Carolina. They said they came because they'd never seen a black chaplain.
Black's assignment as a chaplain was at the Fleet Religious Support Activity in Norfolk. He went on to many other duties, from the Naval Academy in Annapolis to Okinawa, and finally back to Norfolk as chaplain of the Atlantic Fleet.
In 1998, Black reached flag rank, and in August 2000, he was selected to serve as the Navy's first black chief of chaplains in Washington, D.C.
Order Chaplain Black's Autobiography, From the Hood to the Hill: A Story of Overcoming
Learn more about Chaplain Barry C. Black
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