openpolitics.com

91:25

Just two quick points.

One is I think there has been a tension

throughout American history between prophetic religion

and what you could call the alternative.

Liturgically, you could call it law-based.

And the African-American church has always

partaken of the prophetic.

And I’ve always found that you can–

if you’re talking about talking to a Christian,

you know which side they are on by whether they quote Micah,

Isaiah, and Amos or Leviticus.

And whether they–

[LAUGHTER]

–quote– whether they quote the social passages of the New

Testament or the conversion passages of the New Testament.

And I think you saw that in the fight over slavery.

You saw that over social justice issues

in the progressive era in the ’30s.

I mean, you saw it in the Civil Rights years.

I think that’s a deep tension that’s always running

through American religion.

100:21

that obviously, slave owners wanted their slaves

to be Christians, but that they were–

I remember reading this.

I haven’t seen evidence of it.

That they actually had Bibles printed up

for slaves, in which the Bible was printed,

but the Book of Exodus was left out.

Yeah.

Oh, OK.

I’ve heard that, yes.

I want to get that on display somewhere.

I’ve heard that, as well.

And what’s fascinating is how deeply important the book

of Exodus is in every African-American church,

and how central it is African-American preaching,

for obvious reasons.

I mean, “let my people go.”

But yes.

I’m going to try to remember where I have found this

because there were very–

the first slave owners tried to keep the slaves illiterate,

and actually didn’t want them reading the whole Bible

because the Bible is very dangerous.

And there was often a tradition of one slave, at least,

becoming literate.

And the original African-American churches

were in the woods, and they were–

and the slaves were very conscious of those parts

of scripture that pointed to the freedom.

And so I think, in some cases, they were limited Bibles.

But in a lot of cases, the effort

was to keep the slaves illiterate so

that they would only hear the parts,

say, of Saint Paul, that said slaves, obey your masters,

and that sort of thing.

Which was the part that influenced Billy Graham when

he spoke in Moscow— in Russia.

Spoke in Russia, yeah.

Thank you.