Tech Week and "Uncle Tom"

We're in tech for the simplest staging and most provocative piece of our theater festival, "Convergence of History: Four Anniversaries, One Faith."

So, I'm eager for and wary of how the audience will respond to "Freedom Song: The Amazing Grace/Uncle Tom Suite," the Reader's Theater piece Vikki and I are presenting Saturday, April 11 at the Schaumburg Township District Library. The reading begins at noon. Our time together, including the post-show Q & A, is an hour. Unless people want to hang out and keep talking.

Given the racial, political, spiritual and emotional intensity of the last month -- not to mention the last 15 -- it may not seem wise to read excerpts of the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." in public. Yet, it's perhaps because of the current climate that we sense a different type of pertinence to this program.

There are three discoveries we've made as we've woven the narrative of John Newton's transformation from slave-trader to the pastor who composed "Amazing Grace" that we believe will make this hour worth attending:

1) The intriguing way Newton came to experience "grace" as an act of God to be replicated, not just discussed and sung about.

2) How author Harriet Beecher Stowe was affected by the lyrics to the extent she was to use them and adapt her own as an integral element in her novel's storyline and the protagonist's decisions.

3) That Stowe's prologue and epilogue, which we highlight in our adaptation, are a more frightening message to the those who claim Christian faith in the United States in 2026 as when she penned them in 1852. Her message, in the same vein as Frederick Douglass' speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?", challenges professed Christians to live the tenets of the Christ rather than leveraging selected passages to justify personal positions.

This last discovering surprised us because,

a) because we didn't include them when we created the script in 2019;

b) I only found these passages after last Saturday's rehearsal when Vikki and I felt a section of the script needed more context. Reading Stowe's bookending words was a gift of grace. And a plus of Reader's Theater.

We're hopeful you will grace us with your presence Saturday. We have no agenda other than to entertain, educate, equip and empower Safe-Faith Conversations and a closer living the grace of The LORD God.

Yes, we still have seats: tinyurl.com/GraceTom2026