Addendum for Thabiti

I have been doing a fair amount of reading on sabbatical, including Thabiti Anyabwile's The Decline of African American Theology, which I enjoyed immensely.  Thabiti uses original sources to document the ways in which African American theology has moved from its reformational roots. 

Reading what Thabiti wrote about the doctrine of sin reminded me of one of my favorite anecdotes on the subject, from the life of a 19^th-century black minister named J. W. C. Pennington.  Maybe it is something Thabiti can include in the revised edition.  After escaping from slavery in Maryland, Pennington lived with the family of a Presbyterian elder in New York--a family that showed him the love of Jesus.  Pennington had been deeply scarred by his awful experiences as a slave, and he vowed that he would never forgive his captors.  But the more Pennington heard about the gospel of Jesus Christ, the more he realized that he was not just sinned against, but also a sinner.  Here is how Pennington described his repentance: "Day after day, I found myself more deeply convicted of personal guilt before God. . . . Burning with a recollection of the wrongs men had done me--mourning for the injuries my brethren were still enduring, [I also became] deeply convinced of the guilt of my own sins against God."[1]