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St. Paul's Baptist Church pastor celebrates her fifth anniversary

For the Rev. Leslie D. Callahan, serving as pastor of a church in North Philadelphia is not just about spreading the Gospel - it's also about being an advocate and activist for the community.

The Rev. Leslie Callahan, pastor of St. Paul's Baptist Church in North Philadelphia. A dynamic preacher with credentials from Harvard and Penn, Callahan is marking her fifth year at the church. (CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer)
The Rev. Leslie Callahan, pastor of St. Paul's Baptist Church in North Philadelphia. A dynamic preacher with credentials from Harvard and Penn, Callahan is marking her fifth year at the church. (CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer)Read more

For the Rev. Leslie D. Callahan, serving as pastor of a church in North Philadelphia is not just about spreading the Gospel - it's also about being an advocate and activist for the community.

Callahan, who left a job on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania to join the ministry, is marking her fifth anniversary as pastor of St. Paul's Baptist Church at 10th and Wallace Streets.

"For pretty much my whole life, I felt the tension and the pull between academic life and the church," Callahan said. "I really believed that I was going to be a pastor, but the professional opportunities as an academic emerged first.

"So I came here to join the faculty of the religious studies department at Penn."

Callahan, 44, a coal miner's daughter from the small town of Gary, W. Va., earned a bachelor's degree in religion from Harvard, a master's in divinity at Union Theological Seminary, and a doctorate in religion at Princeton University.

She also served on the faculty of New York Theological Seminary.

It was while working at Penn that she started seeking opportunities to be a pastor.

"I really started to look for churches that would be open to a woman as pastor," Callahan said. "I was directed to send my information to St. Paul's, and, sure enough, they were open."

A single mother of a 2-year-old girl, Annabelle, Callahan has led the church's 400 members with a focus on activism.

"We open our doors to folks who are in need," she said. Callahan noted that the church has programs that provide food and clothing. It also has summer programs and athletic programs for youth.

There are also three Narcotics Anonymous programs at the church.

Looking forward, she said she wants the church to have more collaborations with "people who have ideas and want to do work, particularly in the community."

Jason Clark, a member of St. Paul's, said Callahan combines a Southern flair and an intellectual perspective in her sermons.

"She really makes people think and challenges them on an intellectual level, then transitions to Scripture," Clark said.

Callahan "blends the spiritual nature that people really want to get in the black church and the scholastic and service issues that people want to see addressed," Clark said.

A member of a clergy group known as POWER - Pennsylvanians Organized to Witness Empower and Rebuild - Callahan went with a delegation of Philadelphia ministers to Ferguson, Mo., this summer in support of people protesting the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer. The incident sparked several nights of unrest in the St. Louis suburb.

"I recognized in Ferguson something that is bigger and more pervasive than what happened to Mike Brown alone," Callahan said. "When I got to St. Louis, I learned that part of what we see as unrest is the culmination of generations of mistreatment."

The Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel AME Church in Society Hill, described Callahan as a "tremendous inspiration" who is "doing a wonderful job at St. Paul's."

"She's an incredible intellectual, but yet she's able to keep her feet on the ground," said Tyler, who also went to Ferguson as a member of POWER.