The first published book of a Vancouver author has received high praise from Cornel West and Congresswoman Barbara Lee. The book is entitled Sounding the Trumpet: How Churches Can Answer God’s Call to Justice. It is coauthored by the Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. and the Rev. Dr. Brooks Berndt, the pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Vancouver, Washington. For Berndt, the book has been a dream come true. As a teenager and later as a college student, Berndt read the writings of leaders in the Civil Rights Movement and dreamed of being around such giants of courage and strength. With this book, Berndt realized that dream in more than one way.
To begin with, Berndt’s coauthor is a living legend of the struggle for black freedom. Smith has been described by Al Sharpton as the “Black Pope,” while Cornel West refers to him as his “intellectual Godfather in the ministry.” For 40 years, Smith served as the Senior Pastor for Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, a church with a national reputation for its ministry of black empowerment and liberation. In the 70s, Smith worked closely with the Black Panther Party. He was the one who both baptized and eulogized Huey Newton. At one point, he was the president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the denomination that Martin Luther King, Jr. played a pivotal role in creating.
In addition to Smith, Sounding the Trumpet has connected Berndt to other heroes. As an undergraduate majoring in African American Studies in the early 90s, Berndt’s number one idol was Cornel West, who at the time was a professor of both Philosophy and African American Studies at Harvard University. West has praised Sounding the Trumpet as “a masterpiece…full of deep spiritual truths.” As an undergraduate, Berndt also studied for a semester in South Africa where he was exposed to the writings of an anti-apartheid leader named Allan Boesak. On the back cover of Sounding the Trumpet, Boesak proclaims that the book is one “to read, and re-read, and cherish, and pass on.”
Berndt is full of gratitude for the book’s early success. He states, “At times, it is hard for me to believe that I have been this fortunate. I owe a lot to Smith who has been willing to mentor me over the past twelve years.” The book is an expression of that mentoring relationship. It contains letters exchanged between the two pastors over the course of more than a year. The result is an intimate glimpse into the story of two friends who encounter the challenges of responding to God’s call for justice, but, ultimately, find a wellspring of hope and inspiration.
More information about the book can be found at www.soundingthetrumpet.org. It can be ordered at apairofdocspublishing.com/home/trumpeting-the-sound.
A gala book event for Sounding the Trumpet will be held at First Congregational United Church of Christ on Sunday, November 10th at 11:15 am. The reception will feature a special cookie mentioned in the book: burning bush marshmallow cookies. Because J. Alfred Smith, Sr. is currently recuperating from an illness, his son Tony Smith will be the one reading selections from the book authored by his father.