Saint Andrew Lutheran Church Installs New Pastor

Franklin’s Saint Andrew Lutheran Church is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the leadership of its new senior pastor, Rev. Terrance Jacob, who brings with him lessons of both faith and justice.

Jacob was officially installed in his new role during a July 13 ceremony led by Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s Southeastern Synod Bishop, Rev. Dr. Kevin Strickland.

As he took to the pulpit, Jacob recognized St. Andrew’s founding pastor and now Pastor Emeritus Eric C. Pearson, who was seated with other clergy members on what was Pearson’s 56th anniversary of his ordination.

Jacob has worked throughout Africa and the U.S., including in Illinois, Minnesota, California, Ohio, Florida and North Carolina, before now settling in Franklin.

A South African native of African and Indian descent, Jacob told the Williamson Scene that he grew up in a church that, like much of the country, was racially divided during apartheid.

“When I was 10, I had awareness enough to stage a lone protest in my elementary school where I refused to stand up for the raising of the apartheid flag and the singing of the national anthem, and I had a sense from that age that that was part of my calling,” Jacob said. “I was also out of our call to ministry in church, and so I knew from that age that there's going to be this kind of thread, double thread, that was going to be weaved into my life of social justice and in faith.”

Those callings saw Jacob become deeply involved in the anti-apartheid movement as a community organizer, which later resulted in his expulsion from university, and in 1986, at the age of 24, he was imprisoned for two months without trial.

His arrest was a part of a state of emergency declared by then South African President Pieter W. Botha which, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, gave police and military “almost unlimited powers, including the authority to issue whatever orders they regard as necessary, to use whatever force is required to restore law and order, to detain any person indefinitely without charge, to conduct searches and seizures without warrants and to censor the news media.”

Some 1,200 anti-apartheid activists, religious leaders, union officials and students were arrested in what was then an indefinite detention, which sometimes involved both emotional and physical abuse.

“They received a lot worse treatment than me,” Jacob said, noting that he was arrested wearing religious garb including a handmade leather cross around his neck.

Still, he recounted his isolation detention with sixteen other people, including a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, in a walled prison section, with nearly daily interrogations.

“I spent a lot of time in prayer and reading and asking Jesus if, if I'm following you and you led me here, then let me know more intimately who you are, so that my identity can be shaped by yours,” Jacob said. “It simply affirmed the call of Christ to be a witness in the world, and that kind of led me to go to seminary.”

Jacob’s career has included work for the Council of Churches in Durban, South Africa, and serving as an Election Observer and Peace Monitor during South Africa’s first democratic elections in April 1994, where he cast his first ballot at the age of 32.

He was also appointed as a  peace monitor and election observer at the voting station where anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela cast his first vote, in the election that saw him elected to serve as the country’s first Black president, a moment that Jacob called “the greatest honor of my life.”

In October of that same year, the World Council of Churches appointed Jacob as an international observer of neighboring Mozambique’s first democratic elections in October 1994.

He’s served as the Executive Director of the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation's Africa Desk, where he built an organization of 135 congregations in South Africa, and met with then-Senator Barack Obama, who visited South Africa for the first time in 2006, a trip that brought international attention to the future American president.

In 2017, while preaching in Gainesville, Fla., Jacob helped to organize a peaceful inter-faith demonstration in opposition of white nationalist Richard Spencer, who spoke at the University of Florida. Spencer’s Florida appearance came two months after he led a torch march in Charlottesville, Va., the night before a large white nationalist rally ended in a hate-crime vehicle attack that killed one woman.

Jacob said that while his life’s work has been focused on social justice, it has also been centered on the teachings of Jesus Christ.

“Our challenge is not to go to the point of saying, oh, because we speak up against injustice, we can compromise on our identity as Christians,” Jacob said.

“My understanding of the gospel is [that] it then gives us the mandate to do all of these other things that the social movements are doing. If we don't do that, then we’re just another altruistic movement that doesn't really need a faith base,” Jacob said, adding that he sees hope with the new generation.

“Interestingly, amongst the Gen Zs, at least those that I engage with, there's not a running away from our Christian identity, but a celebration that our Christian identity is taking us out into the world,” noting recent social movements such as rallying for immigrant rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Still, [we] say we're doing this because we are Christian, so that's my hope that, you know, yes, we work across denominations and religious grounds, but we still have to hold on to who we are.”