Read The Bible and slavery will die out: it is an abolitionist book. Race based slavery is impossible to a Bible reader without mental disfigurement. You cannot read the entire book and own a man. The slavers knew it and produced a Bible with all those bits removed . . . and there were many of them. Forget the slavers misuse of Scriptures, instead we can turn to the freedman who knew the Bible was his Bible. Charles Octavius Boothe... Read more
Charles Octavius Boothe lived at a moment in American history where living as a Christian should live meant persecution. If he sought justice and loved mercy, he might be murdered by terrorist organizations. Despite this, Reverend Boothe lived an active Christian life seeking what he called “uplift” for African-Americans coming out of slavery into a world of Jim Crow. His Plain Theology for Plain People is directed at the hundreds of thousands of African-Americans looking for an education in the Christian faith.... Read more
We are as we are, but thinking shows we are not as we should be. We fall short in our actions and we are broken. We cannot always do what we wish. The good, beauty, and truth exist and when we are bad, ugly, and false, paradise cannot receive us. That’s the bad news with the good news that God provided a way to help us at the deepest level: we can be born again. We also can (though too often we... Read more
Jesus. Jesus is Christianity or at least the reason for Christianity, even the broken bits. Jesus is the beginning and end of any discussion of the truth and will undergird the middle! The Reverend Doctor C.O. Boothe set himself the task of explaining theology plainly for plain people. Think of him as a forerunner of the CS Lewis project of expounding a “mere” Christianity with an American accent and (what would come to be called) an Evangelical experience and audience.... Read more
We know too little about the makers of the American mind, particularly in religion. Our roots matter if we are to grow in a healthy manner as a nation. One maker of the modern Evangelical mind was Charles Octavius Boothe, minister, scholar, educator who spoke to the “plain people” in his systemization of Biblical and historical Christianity in Plain Theology for Plain People. Being reminded of the broad Biblical basis for teachings that all Christians have in common is needful... Read more
What is a human being? Our answers will do much to shame society, though our practice will tell us more about what we actually believe. A minority of American Christians persuaded themselves that they could hold to a Christian anthropology and enslave people based on race. In fact, one Baptist, Thomas Dixon, convinced himself that separation of the races and white supremacy were the two most important issues of the era. Against this was the majority of global Christianity, but... Read more
Specialists develop professional language to shorten conversations with each other and to achieve precision in complicated arguments. Gone wrong, however, this can turn into jargon where things that could be said simply and precisely in plain English are made obscure, often so the speaker can bloviate without fear of contradiction. Sometimes those of us who are lay readers of theology find writers that needlessly complicate (Tillich), leaving us the suspicion there is little sound to the noise ration, but there... Read more
Thomas Dixon wrote a series of racist books so terrible Woodrow Wilson liked them and Hollywood made Birth of a Nation to monetize their lies. This confirms two rules of thumb: progressive cant does not cancel racism and Hollywood will do anything for money. The books, consider the title Leapord’s Spots, were a cry for race purity against “miscegenation.” White Southern folk did eugenics first. Racist. Ugly. Arguing for Confederate nostalgia. Thomas Dixon attacked the very beauty of the African-American... Read more
Listen. Before I say why, I remind myself: Listen. When you come to a great thinker and writer, first listen. The Harlam Renaissance produced great art from a diverse group of people and nothing should stand in the way of learning from a great mind. As a person who cannot know the experiences of the African-American community of that time directly, the need to listen is even greater. One truth I hear is that justice delayed, as it was and... Read more
The Bioshock series of games are better entertainment than most movies and more thoughtful than most novels. Let’s get this out of the way: the acting in the three Bioshock games is not The Passion of Joan of Arc. The plot is not Tale of Two Cities or Jane Eyre. The questions asked and the answers suggested will not replace Republic or John in a good curriculum soon. The science doesn’t rise to the level of Timaeus, let alone On the Origin of the Species. Most movies, nearly all... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In