A member of the 2nd Cohort of CTS’s PhD Program in African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric, Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III is a gifted pastor and social activist engaged in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and fighting against racial injustice. The visionary and innovative senior pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, TX, for the past 38 years, Haynes has helped to build the ministry and membership of the church from a congregation of fewer than 100 members in 1983 to one that now numbers more than 12,000.
At a gathering earlier this fall, Rev. Dr. Haynes challenged his audience to engage in the fight to mitigate poverty and to raise up justice in our community. Watch his message below, which included the following insightful statements:
- “We need hustlers of hope”
- “If we are serious about dealing with poverty, we must deal with the systems”
- “Poverty means my options are limited”
- “Oftentimes, we are guilty of judging persons in poverty for their choices, but yet we do nothing about their options”
- “Charity is a sprint race. Justice is a marathon fight”
- “To ignore systems while engaging in service will in essence reinforce the system that produces the necessity for service”
- “Violence shows up when people find themselves impoverished”
- “We will embody hope if we overturn the systems”
