Thread by @AlsoACarpenter

I think this, unfortunately, is a common assumption among white Christians.

John MacArthur, 1978, on “the black church movement”:

“I was reading Oliver Buswell, III’s book. He’s a very leading anthropologist, a fine Christian. 1/

2/"His book called Slavery, Segregation and the Scripture, in which he says that the people were teaching the slaves how to read. And then they found out that when they read, they read the Bible. And when they read the Bible they got saved, and then they wanted to come to church.

3/ "And they had a problem. So they stopped teaching them to read. And that’s what happened. And so, what grew up in the south was a caricature of Christianity. And much of what you see is black southern Christianity has some of the parts, but it’s almost a caricature ...

4/ "...because it only went so far and then it was cut off.
And what grew out of it was a tradition, basically because they didn’t have what they needed in terms of education to fill out their Christian understanding.”

gty.org/library/sermon…

5/ Again, in 1987:

“The net effect of that in many areas was that they had a smattering of biblical Christianity tied in with a whole lot of culture, and so what generated was the black church movement which is sort of a highbred syncretism of their culture under slavery ...

6/ "...and a little bit of Christianity mixed in. And that highbred is a living testimony to the withdrawing of the revelation of God from the black people.

7/7 "And many of them, of course, by God’s wonderful grace have come out of the caricature into the reality of Jesus Christ, for which we praise God.”

gty.org/library/sermon…