by Jozen Cummings
When Reverend Calvin O. Butts III takes the pulpit every Sunday to preach before his congregation at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, he always reminds the congregation that he too is a sinner. He does this, he says, as to avoid the stigma of today’s modern day preacher. “There have been these public displays of biting the dust,” says Butts. “Preaching one thing and doing something else.”
The other preachers that he mentions are not Butts’ main concern—it is their reputation that has him alarmed. In an age where outlandish sermons can be viewed millions of times online, and today’s image of a church is no longer a quaint parish on a dusty road but rather a mini stadium with ATM machines in the vestry, Butts is working to dispel the marred image of his occupation. He is a true old-school preacher who stretches himself to be as many things as possible for his community.
When he’s not preaching on Sundays, Rev. Butts may be walking the campus of State University of New York College at Old Westbury, where he is the president, or at any number of speaking engagements around the world. He might drop by the Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change, a middle and high school he founded in Harlem, or he may be in Washington, D.C. for a meeting with the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, a committee on which he sits. Add onto that his duties at the Abyssinian Development Corporation, the Harlem community development organization he founded in 1989, and you have a man so busy he worries if he’s setting the right example to the generation who will succeed him.