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The Bible Told Them So
The Bible Told Them So
How Southern Evangelicals Fought to
Preserve White Supremacy

J. RU S SE L L HAW K I N S

1
 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Hawkins, J. Russell, author.
Title: The Bible told them so : how Southern Evangelicals fought to
preserve white supremacy / by J. Russell Hawkins.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020058623 (print) | LCCN 2020058624 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197571064 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197571071 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: South Carolina—Church history—20th century. |
Segregation—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Segregation—
South Carolina—History—20th century. | Christians, White—
South Carolina—History. | White supremacy movements—Religious aspects—Christianity. |
Baptists—South Carolina. | Methodists—South Carolina. |
Racism—Religious aspects—Christianity. | South Carolina—Race relations.
Classification: LCC BR555. S6 H39 2021 (print) |
LCC BR555. S6 (ebook) | DDC 261.709757/09045—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058623
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058624

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571064.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
for Kristi, my love
 Acknowledgments

I made my first trip to South Carolina to conduct the research that would
eventually become this book in 2006. One of the difficulties with a project
that spans fourteen years is the accumulation of debts so numerous that they
are impossible to fully remember, let alone repay. What follows is a meager
attempt to, at a minimum, acknowledge some of those debts. I hope that the
people named below recognize their influence on this project far exceeds the
brief mention I am able to give them.
Financial support for researching this book came in part from the Southern
Baptist Historical Library and Archives, Baylor University’s Institute for Oral
History, the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies,
Rice University’s Dean Currie Fund, and Indiana Wesleyan University’s Lilly
Scholarship Fund and Sabbatical Grant Award. The generosity of these var-
ious entities allowed me to pursue research in nineteen different archives in
half a dozen states. While a cursory glance through the notes will reveal that
some of those archival visits were more fruitful than others, the archivists
at each and every stop were unfailingly helpful and went out of their way to
provide me with the materials I knew I needed and point me to more that
they knew I needed. Among this group of archivists, Bill Sumners, Graham
Duncan, Kate Moore, Herb Hartsook, and Phillip Stone deserve special rec-
ognition for sharing their insights, expertise, and camaraderie during my
visits to their respective collections.
John B. Boles oversaw this project in its early stages as a graduate disserta-
tion at Rice University and pushed me to extend my arguments and analysis
as it evolved into a monograph. Along the way, John has been an unwavering
source of encouragement and kindness. Those of us who have been students
of Dr. Boles know how fortunate we are to have been recipients of his bril-
liance and generosity. Michael Emerson’s scholarship on race and evangelical
Christianity also played a significant role in shaping the ideas found in these
pages during their nascent stage at Rice and in their final form in this book.
Michael’s professional and personal advice and guidance over the years have
been indispensable to me. Early in my career I was fortunate to participate
in a three week interdisciplinary seminar that Michael convened at Calvin
x Acknowledgments

University in 2010 on the topic of race in American religion. A decade later,

many of the relationships forged during that seminar continue to endure
and the arguments in this book have been strengthened by the historians,
theologians, and sociologists Michael gathered together that summer: Ed
Blum, Tanya Brice, Ryon Cobb, Korie Edwards, Paul Gordiejew, Luke
Harlow, Kimberly Hill, Karen Joy Johnson, Rebecca Kim, Mark Mulder, Jerry
Park, Julie Park, Regina Shands Stoltzfus, and Erica Wong. Another member
of our group, theologian Bruce Fields, passed away before this book’s publi-
cation, but his influence helped shaped not only this book but my own life
as well.
It has been a pleasure working with Oxford University Press again, and
I am especially grateful for Cynthia Read and Brent Matheny who shepherded
this project along. In addition to designing the incredible cover, Oxford also
lined up stellar anonymous readers whose helpful suggestions and trenchant
critiques made for a much better final product.
As helpful as the anonymous readers were, so too have been the innumer-
able colleagues and peers who have provided invaluable feedback at different
points in the writing of this book. Three deserve special mention. Carolyn
Dupont has been generous with her analysis of my work in its various stages
and the insights drawn from her research of Mississippi evangelicals helped
sharpen my own conclusions. In addition to commenting on chapter drafts,
Wes Phelps has served as my roommate at many academic conferences over
the years where he has endured a decade’s worth of discussions about this
book and its arguments. Finally, Luke Harlow has read drafts of seemingly
everything I have written going back to our earliest days together as new
graduate students at Rice and has never failed to provide suggestions that im-
prove my analysis and arguments at every turn. Carolyn, Wes, and Luke have
all made this a significantly better book.
My academic home the past twelve years has been in the John Wesley
Honors College at Indiana Wesleyan University. My honors college colleagues
have been the best I could have wanted and I have lost track of the number
of drafts I have asked them to read or conversations about race and evangel-
icalism I have subjected them to. These fine individuals include Annastasia
Bonczyk, Brian Clark, Lena Crouso, Lanta Davis, Lexi Eikelboom, Kirsten
Guidero, Amy Peeler, Lance Peeler, Todd Ream, Jason Runyan, Jeff Tabone,
Sara Scheuneman, Anneke Stasson, Julia VanderMolen, Lisa Toland
Williams, and Sameer Yadav. It has been a gift to be part of this interdiscipli-
nary community where my own research has been pushed and deepened by
 Acknowledgments xi

the insights and scholarship of these incredible peers. Two additional honors
college colleagues warrant further recognition. David Riggs has been my
dean since the day I arrived at Indiana Wesleyan and has been nothing but
supportive of my research and teaching from the start. I am thankful for both
his professional leadership and personal friendship. I had the good fortune of
having an office across the hall from Charles Bressler for my first seven years
at Indiana Wesleyan and learned how to teach and interact with students and
colleagues by following his example. Charles read every single word of this
book in its manuscript form. And after I incorporated his feedback, he read
every word again. With his keen editorial eye, Charles improved this book
immensely. Thank you, kind sir!
Many students over the years have enrolled in my honors seminars on reli-
gion and the civil rights movement and have helped sift through the archival
material that is the basis of so much of this book. Two students in partic-
ular served as research assistants at key points in the book’s production and
deserve their own mention. Early on, Stephen German accompanied me
on a week-​long research trip to South Carolina and went through countless
boxes and folders to amass a significant amount of the evidence presented
in the book. Allison Tinch, meanwhile, provided invaluable support in the
final stages, hunting down sources, double checking endnotes, and providing
helpful feedback on final drafts. A hearty thanks to Steve and Tinch for their
contributions to this project.
I have been fortunate to be part of two intentionally multiracial churches
in Texas and Indiana during the duration of writing this book. City of Refuge
Church in Houston was my church home when this project began and REAL
Community Covenant Church in Marion is where my family and I attend at
its publication. My church families in both these congregations have been a
source of support and inspiration to me over the years and give me hope that
the history found in this book may yet be redeemed.
My biological family has likewise been a source of indispensable en-
couragement in the course of bringing this book into being. My father and
mother, James and Carolyn Hawkins, nurtured my love of history at a young
age with every quarter deposited at my “president’s stand.” Along with my
sisters, Emily Dennis and Kathryn Lalli, my parents have been consistent
supporters—​and served as my imagined readers—​throughout the writing of
this book.
My sons, Caleb and Micah, have listened to (and occasionally even
requested) countless lectures on American history during family hikes and
xii Acknowledgments

bike rides over the years. In addition to pushing me to make my stories inter-
esting and relevant, they have been a source of incalculable pride and joy and
have helped me maintain much needed balance and perspective about the
important things in life.
Finally, this book would never have been finished without the encourage-
ment and support of my wife, Kristi. She more than anyone else in my life has
lived with this book for the past fourteen years. Kristi has sacrificed countless
evenings and weekends to ensure that I finish this project and never stopped
believing I could even when I gave her every reason to do so. She is my biggest
supporter, proudest promoter, and best friend. This book is dedicated to her,
along with the promise that the next one won’t take so long.
 Introduction
“As Old as the Scriptures . . . ”

On a June afternoon in 1963, nearly 250 religious leaders gathered in the

East Room of the White House. Hailing from all corners of the country and
representing different faiths and multiple Christian denominations, the
clerics assembled that late-​spring Monday at the invitation of President John
F. Kennedy to discuss how American pastors, priests, and rabbis could rally
support for Kennedy’s recent call for sweeping civil rights legislation. Less
than a week before this meeting with the clergy, Kennedy couched black
equality in explicitly moral terms during a televised address to the nation
that Martin Luther King Jr. later called “one of the most eloquent, profound,
and unequivocal pleas for justice and the freedom of all men ever made by
any President.” With his bold speech, Kennedy positioned his administra-
tion on the side of the black demonstrators organizing and marching in the
streets of southern cities that year. But the President understood that per-
suading Congress to pass a bill elevating black Americans from second-​class
citizen status required more than well-​crafted speeches. For this reason,
Kennedy followed his televised address with a campaign to sell his proposal
to groups whose power and influence in American society would benefit the
civil rights crusade. Governors, labor leaders, educators, lawyers, hotel and
theater owners—​all were summoned to the White House to hear the presi-
dent discuss the need for new civil rights legislation. Kennedy’s staff reserved
June 17 for the nation’s religious leaders to receive the presidential pitch, and
as Kennedy prepared for his meeting with the clerics, his aides reminded the
president to tailor his remarks to this particular group by emphasizing “the
moral position of the churches on the question of racial equality.”1 The presi-
dent indicated he understood.
The assembled clergymen respectfully rose from their gilded chairs as
Kennedy strode into the East Room for their meeting, his characteristic
charm on full display. Smiling, the president welcomed the group to “this old
house,” invited them to have a seat, and expressed his hope that the media’s

The Bible Told Them So. J. Russell Hawkins, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571064.003.0001
2 The Bible Told Them So

absence from the gathering would allow Kennedy and his guests to have a
candid conversation regarding the need for a civil rights law. Kennedy told
the men that while his main objective that day was to hear their thoughts,
the president nonetheless felt obliged to offer a few introductory remarks: “I
would hope each religious group would—​and again I don’t think we can say
this too often—​underscore the moral position of racial equality,” the presi-
dent said. “There is bound to be resentments against Washington. There is
bound to be resentment against outsiders. The more we can make this . . . a
community action, with moral overtones and not merely a political effort,
the better off we will be.” Recalling his staff ’s instructions, Kennedy reiter-
ated his charge that civil rights was a moral issue before opening the floor to
suggestions that his administration could heed to maximize support from
people of faith for his proposed legislation.2
Around the room hands went up, and the president signaled to individ-
uals eager to express their views. “I am very happy this meeting was held
because the holding of this meeting is a recognition of the fact by the entire
country that this is a moral problem, essentially,” said a local minister from
Washington, DC. “It may have economic, legal and social overtones,” he con-
tinued, “but we as religious men must consider it solely the essential thing
that it is, a moral problem.” Similar comments continued in the East Room as
northern clergymen of liberal theological persuasions suggested means for
communicating the righteousness of civil rights to their parishioners.3
But when Kennedy called on the raised hand of Albert Garner, a Baptist
minister from Florida, the meeting took an unexpected turn. Rising to ad-
dress Kennedy, Garner informed the president and his fellow clergy that
he and other white people of the “Southland” were certainly in agreement
that civil rights was a moral issue, but not in the same way the others in the
room viewed it. Instead, Garner noted that many southern white Christians
like himself actually held a “strong moral conviction” that “racial integra-
tion . . . is against the will of their Creator.” After all, Garner reasoned, “seg-
regation is a principle of the Old Testament and . . . prior to this century
neither Christianity nor any denomination of it ever accepted the integration
philosophy.” Since Kennedy and his fellow clergy in the East Room were in-
tent on casting civil rights in a moral light, Garner wondered if the president
had “any remedy by which we can change these [southern white Christians’]
moral convictions and religious convictions of people in the Bible and do you
feel that these convictions are absolutely wrong?”4
 Introduction 3

If Kennedy was startled by Garner’s question, his surprise did not show.
Instead, the president brushed aside Garner’s query—​one account claimed
Kennedy easily dismissed “this familiar bugaboo”—​responding that per-
ceived biblical injunctions against interracial mixing remained matters of
personal religious convictions, not public policy. His administration’s con-
cern, Kennedy informed Garner, was not to force the social intermingling
of the races. Rather, the White House sought only the “equality of jobs and a
chance to get an education, so you can get a job, and a chance to move freely
through this country and stop at places where others stop.”5
Before Garner yielded the floor, he fired a second question to Kennedy.
Could the president suggest ways to calm southern white fears “on the
moral issue of this mixing from [the] high school level down?”6 Once again,
Kennedy parried Garner’s question, this time dispatching the minister’s con-
cern by declaring that school desegregation fell under the purview of the
nation’s courts. But Kennedy ended his exchange with Garner on a concilia-
tory note: “I realize how difficult it is,” the Catholic president told the Baptist
preacher, “but we are asking your people to do what only seems fair and not
cut across their religious convictions.”7
Just two days after Kennedy’s meeting with the religious leaders, the
president submitted a civil rights bill to Congress that started the legisla-
tion on its long and difficult journey to eventual passage. In the intervening
months, white Christians in the South proved that Albert Garner had not
misrepresented them during his White House visit. On a Wednesday eve-
ning in August 1963, five hundred miles south of Washington, DC, members
of a Southern Baptist church in Hanahan, South Carolina, called a special
meeting after their midweek Bible study to discuss Kennedy’s proposed
law. Although the president had hoped congregations like Hanahan Baptist
would help make straight the path for civil rights in the 1960s, the faithful
Baptists gathered that summer evening in this small community outside of
Charleston voted to “take a firm stand against the present civil rights leg-
islation.” Describing themselves as “Christ centered” and “Bible believing,”
these Hanahan Baptists saw no contradiction between their Christian faith
and their opposition to a law they perceived as forcing them to accept black
Americans as their equal.8 The Hanahan Baptists were not alone. Across the
South, white Christians thought the president was flaunting Christian ortho-
doxy in pursuing his civil rights agenda. “Where does Mr. Kennedy get his
views and rules?” queried one white southerner for many during the national
4 The Bible Told Them So

debate over civil rights. “Certainly not from the Holy Bible of God and Jesus
Christ.”9
Although Kennedy would not live to see the realization of his desired law,
a little more than a year after he proposed his hallmark bill, the 1964 Civil
Rights Act became law. This watershed legislation was followed the next year
by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, an equally if not more important law in the
quest for black equality. Taken together, these two acts fundamentally altered
the American South more quickly than the region’s residents could have ever
foreseen. The passage of such revolutionary legislation immediately aided
the black southerners’ defeat of Jim Crow so much so that Kennedy’s in-​
house historian, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., predicted that twenty-​first-​century
historians would struggle to explain why liberal achievements like the Civil
Rights Act and Voting Rights Act took so long to be enacted. Schlesinger
wondered how was it that for more than a century after the end of slavery,
white Americans countenanced the “systematic dehumanization” of their
fellow black citizens.10
Standing before Kennedy in the East Room of the White House in June
1963, Albert Garner had provided an answer to Schlesinger’s rhetorical
question for those who were able to hear. The president of the United States,
however, did not have such ears. Kennedy simply could not comprehend the
truth Garner was communicating: based on their religious beliefs, southern
white Christians thought integration was evil. When Kennedy told Garner
he wanted southern white Christians to do only what was fair and not vi-
olate their religious beliefs, the president was inventing a dichotomy be-
tween their Christian faith and racial attitudes that few white southerners
would recognize or even accept. As demonstrated by the Hanahan Baptists,
religious convictions forged by reading and interpreting scripture and fol-
lowing inherited traditions formed many white Christians’ sense of fairness
regarding black equality. Asking white southerners to ignore their religious
beliefs in pursuit of racial equality was seemingly asking the impossible.
These white southerners did not undertake their resistance to black equality
in spite of their religious convictions, but their faith drove their support of
Jim Crow segregation. Central to the drama for racial justice that unfolded
during America’s civil rights years lay an indisputable religious conflict be-
tween black Christian activists and their white Christian antagonists, both of
whom confidently, proudly, and often joyously claimed God’s favor for their
political stance.
 Introduction 5

An intramural Christian dispute over God’s position on civil rights is

perhaps difficult to imagine in the twenty-​first century. Devout Christians
who read their Bibles, prayed to Jesus, and sincerely believed God desired
segregation—​people like Albert Garner and the Hanahan Baptists—​are most
often left out of public remembrances and popular culture portrayals of the
civil rights movement. These segregationists Christians’ absence in popular
civil rights accounts makes it difficult to grasp the religious dimensions of
resistance to the black freedom struggle, inadvertently lending credence that
black protestors alone were motivated by their faith. Hollywood films and
best-​selling novels set in the civil rights years, for instance, almost invariably
include scenes of activists packed in the pews of black churches with freedom
songs ringing out and powerful sermons soaring from pulpits to recruit and
fortify foot soldiers in the march to black equality. And these depictions
are not wrong. Historians such as David L. Chappell and Lewis V. Baldwin
have accurately shown that a deep and abiding Christian faith forged in and
through experiences of oppression energized many black civil rights activists
and helped sustain them throughout their freedom struggle.11 As Chappell
underscores, black Christianity rooted in the prophetic tradition made the
civil rights movement move.12
But another version of Christianity is seldom portrayed in the well-​known
renditions of the civil rights movement that many Americans celebrate: the
Christianity characterized and articulated by Albert Garner standing in the
East Room of the White House, insisting that white southerners’ biblical de-
fense of segregation was hermeneutically correct. This version of Christianity
allowed Hanahan Baptists to move seamlessly from studying their Bibles
to denouncing civil rights legislation on the same Wednesday evening. It
is the version of Christianity practiced by a large percentage of southern
white evangelicals, justifying their resistance to racial equality during the
civil rights years. In the previous century, a significant number of white
southerners found in their holy scripture coupled with church traditions
a blueprint for racial segregation, not a call to universal brotherhood. The
present book tells their story, offering an account of white Christians like
Garner and the Hanahan Baptists, who sincerely believed racial integra-
tion violated God’s will. The pages that follow explain how southern white
Christians reached such theological conclusions and illustrate how this ver-
sion of Christianity adapted to defend segregation’s righteousness even after
the gains of the civil rights movement.
6 The Bible Told Them So

The Bible Told Them So takes as its vantage point an underexplored corner
of Dixie in the study of white resistance to civil rights: South Carolina.
Although South Carolina has a similar history as other southern states in
the civil rights era—​peaceful protestors facing down violent defenders of Jim
Crow, Citizens’ Councils using economic intimidation to thwart black gains,
reactionary politicians vowing never to integrate—​the state’s massive resist-
ance story occupies far less space in Americans’ collective memory than its
Deep South neighbors. By examining white evangelicals’ fight to thwart civil
rights gains in the Palmetto State, this book breaks new ground in our under-
standing of religious massive resistance in South Carolina while providing a
fuller understanding of segregationist Christianity’s purchase in the South.
In the same way that The Bible Told Them So derives its arguments pri-
marily from South Carolina, its study of white evangelical Christians is lim-
ited chiefly to the state’s Southern Baptists and Methodists.13 In the context
of midcentury South Carolina evangelicalism, however, examining “only”
Baptists and Methodists is hardly a limit at all. In the mid-​twentieth cen-
tury, the percentage of southerners who identified as Protestant Christian
was extraordinarily high; nine of ten southerners identified as such in 1954.
The percentages also had significant persistence. By 1966, the percentage of
Protestant southerners had slipped only three points to 87 percent.14 While
no specific data exists concerning the percentage of South Carolinians iden-
tifying as Protestant during the years covered in this book (1955–​1970), it is
reasonable to believe the state reflected the same percentages as the region to
which it belonged, at or near 90 percent. South Carolina is no exception to
the Baptist and Methodist numerical dominance that scholars have shown
existed throughout the South in the second half of the twentieth century.
Indeed, among Protestant Christians in South Carolina in the mid-​1960s,
over 80 percent identified as a Baptist or a Methodist.15 South Carolina’s
white Southern Baptists and Methodists thus provide a numerically signifi-
cant sample for a study of white evangelicals’ racial perspectives and feelings.
In addition to their sheer volume, Southern Baptists and Methodists pro-
vide useful groups to study because their unique forms of church governance
enabled the two groups to respond differently to racial issues. Congregational
and autonomous in their polity, each Southern Baptist church governs it-
self independently of a church hierarchy or denominational oversight.
Consequently, when sending representatives to state and national meetings
of Southern Baptists, individual churches pointedly send “messengers,”
not “delegates.” Delegates have power to act on behalf of a church, whereas
 Introduction 7

Baptist messengers are allowed only to communicate the desire of their con-
gregation and then report back to their churches news and statements from
the Baptist convention. As church representatives, messengers can vote to ac-
cept or reject reports and proposals at the convention meetings, but none of
these reports or proposals is binding upon the churches within the denomi-
nation.16 Methodists, on the other hand, have an episcopal and bureaucratic
church polity in which congregations submit to the authority of bishops
and to other denominational structures of power. Unlike Southern Baptist
churches, individual Methodist churches cede authority to members of the
laity and clergy who serve as “delegates” to denominational meetings and
conduct binding business on behalf of the represented churches and confer-
ences at such gatherings.
Taken as a whole, white Southern Baptists and Methodists in South
Carolina were remarkably similar in their belief in and support of segrega-
tionist Christianity. Yet the significant difference between Southern Baptist
and Methodist church governance caused the two groups to pursue different
strategies to maintain and protect segregation in their churches, schools,
and denominations. As will be seen in the chapters ahead, the particulars
of church polity required Southern Baptists and Methodists to navigate is-
sues of race in different ways at various times during the civil rights period.
Accounting for these differences provides a fuller understanding of segrega-
tionist Christianity’s influence during and after the civil rights period.
The Bible Told Them So makes two central and interconnected arguments.
First, the book argues that many white South Carolinians who resisted the
civil rights movement were animated by a Christian faith influenced by bib-
lical exegesis that deemed racial segregation as divinely ordered. A com-
plete understanding of southern white resistance to civil rights requires
wrestling with this unique hermeneutic. Prior to a recent historiographical
turn, southern evangelicalism’s role in fueling white animus toward the black
freedom struggle was understudied or even downplayed within civil rights
scholarship.17 Recently, however, a growing number of scholars have dem-
onstrated the power that religious belief held for white evangelical resistance
to the civil rights movement.18 The Bible Told Them So contributes to this
important crop of scholarship by offering a fulsome explication of the bib-
lical interpretations white evangelicals used to construct their segregationist
theology. At the same time, the book demonstrates how such theology fu-
eled southern white Christians’ defense of Jim Crow segregation in their so-
ciety and churches. Drawn from a particular biblical reading, segregationist
8 The Bible Told Them So

theology became the lifeblood of a segregationist Christianity around

which many white southerners ordered their lives in the 1950s. The first
two chapters of this book document this story. In so doing, The Bible Told
Them So demonstrates that the efforts of white Christians in South Carolina
to block the racial gains of their black neighbors harmonized with similar
efforts that historians such as Carolyn DuPont, Ansley Quiros, and Stephen
Haynes have documented in other southern locales. This book’s first argu-
ment, then, extends the current historiography, further revealing the ubiq-
uity of white evangelical resistance to black equality throughout the South
while deepening our understanding of Christianity’s centrality to southern
white resistance to civil rights.
The book’s last three chapters contain its second central argument and
represent a departure from rather than extension of the current scholarship
of religious massive resistance. Tracing the continuation of segregationist
Christianity after the significant gains of the civil rights movement in the
mid-​1960s, I argue that segregationist theology did not cease with the polit-
ical achievements of the civil rights movement. Historically speaking, Albert
Garner’s appeal in the White House to a biblically inspired justification for
segregation occurred during the twilight of legal segregation. As noted previ-
ously, not thirteen months after Garner stood in front of President Kennedy,
Jim Crow had crumbled under the weight of a powerful civil rights act, and
the following year black southerners had successfully secured voting rights.
It is tempting to interpret the religious objections Garner raised in 1963 to
integration as the last gasp of a belief system soon to be relegated to history’s
dustbin. As I show in the pages ahead, however, the biblically inspired seg-
regationist Christianity Garner represented did not die. Indeed, in the years
after 1965, segregationist Christianity evolved and persisted in new forms
that would become mainstays of southern white evangelicalism by the
1970s: colorblind individualism and a heightened focus on the family.
Segregationist Christianity’s capacity to evolve beyond a biblical liter-
alism defending Jim Crow in the 1950s and take on the form of colorblind
familial protection by the 1970s was a product of white evangelicalism’s insu-
lated subculture. While the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights
Act forced a fundamental transformation of the broader southern society,
southern white evangelicals’ claim to religious liberty in their private schools,
church buildings, and denominations provided safe harbor for continued
segregation, denying the black freedom struggle power to change white
evangelicalism. As southern society acquiesced to the changes wrought by
 Introduction 9

the civil rights movement in the late 1960s, however, white evangelicals felt
pressure to justify their support of segregation in new terms. A new “col-
orblind” form of segregationist Christianity allowed southern evangelicals
to maintain social standing by eschewing appeals to the overt segregationist
theology they had made freely a decade hence. But, as this book argues, the
linkages between the explicitly theological Christian segregation in the 1950s
and its more subtle version in the 1970s must not be overlooked. Caught in
the tension between their sincere beliefs that God desired segregation and
their reticence to publicly vocalize such ideas for fear of seeming bigoted or
intolerant, southern white evangelicals eventually arrived at a strategy that
embraced both colorblindness and protection of the family as measures to
maintain both segregation and respectable social standing. Such a strategy,
I argue, took root, blossomed, and spread widely throughout the evangel-
ical subculture in the early 1970s, setting white evangelicals on a detrimental
path for race relations in the decades ahead.
Understanding the argument presented in the following pages requires a
clarification for the way the word “theology” is used in this book.19 To claim
that white Christians who used religious justifications to defend segregation
in the South were employing a “theology” is not to claim that these individ-
uals were drawing upon a codified or systematic argumentation of racial sep-
aration. Although I attempt in Chapter 2 to provide the contours of such a
systematized segregationist theology, few rank-​and-​file Christians thought
in these terms. Even fewer of these individuals making religious arguments
against integration would have considered such acts as “doing theology”
or conceived of themselves as theologians. Assigning the term “theology”
is therefore attributing a level of category sophistication to white religious
conservatives that likely only a handful would have assumed for themselves.
Segregationist theology, then, must be properly understood as the myriad
arguments white southerners made against integration using either the Bible
or the broader natural world.
Such a definition is not intended to imply that segregationist theology
lacked sophistication of thought or sincerity of belief by those who employed
it. Nor should segregationist theology be understood solely as an endeavor
of the Christian laity. To the contrary, southern ministers were instrumental
in both teaching and spreading segregationist theology throughout the re-
gion. While some of these clergy published their formulations of segrega-
tionist theologies in pamphlets, books, and sermons, most toiled away in
the obscurity of the ubiquitous small churches that dotted the southern
10 The Bible Told Them So

landscape, content to make their views on segregation known only to their

congregations in their weekly sermons.
Although ministerial participation in defending racial segregation should
not be discounted, the importance of the laity for segregationist theology’s
ultimate purchase cannot be overemphasized. As historians have noted, be-
cause the democratic strain of evangelicalism in the American context usu-
ally means “it is the people who are custodians of orthodoxy,” it mattered little
that segregationist theology did not pass muster with the seminary-​trained
theologians of the day who made up a small minority of southern white
churchgoers.20 As long as the majority of white southern Christians—​in ei-
ther actual numbers or mere perception—​believed that the Bible they read
and the natural world they observed endorsed the separation of the races,
they continued to work against attempts at racial integration. And, as will be-
come clear in the chapters ahead, white southerners in the twentieth century
had little difficulty seeing segregation written in either the book of nature or
the Good Book itself.
Following this introduction, Chapter 1 begins the story of segregationist
Christianity with an exploration of the tensions that arose in southern evan-
gelicalism between local church congregations and state-​and national-​level
bodies in the wake of the 1954 Brown decision. Such tensions reveal how
Southern Baptists and Methodists negotiated the heightened antagonism
that emerged between denominational leaders and the people in the pews
over civil rights issues in the mid-​1950s. The chapter opens with South
Carolina Southern Baptist churches rejecting broader Southern Baptist
Convention efforts to advocate for civil rights in religious language and
concludes with lay South Carolina Methodists defending the White Citizens’
Councils against criticism from a small number of Methodist clergy. Both
these studies reveal the effective authority of local congregations in directing
southern white churches’ responses to matters of race in the civil rights years.
This chapter highlights that the congregational-​level perspective gives the
best vantage point for understanding white evangelicalism’s response to the
civil rights movement, regardless of church polity.
Chapter 2 explicates the theology behind the resistive response of southern
evangelicals described in the previous chapter. This chapter explains why
conservative white Christians opposed civil rights reforms by arguing that
a significant percentage of these Christians constructed a theology from
both the natural world and biblical texts in which God was viewed as the au-
thor of segregation, one who desired that racial separatism be maintained.
 Introduction 11

Referencing letters, sermons, pamphlets, and books, this chapter documents

how segregationist theology was crafted, defended, and deployed throughout
the 1950s and 1960s in the South. It also demonstrates how such a theology
birthed a segregationist Christianity that became common in southern white
churches, proving influential in shaping the social and political responses
white southerners had to the civil rights movement. Segregationist the-
ology enjoyed enough adherents among church laity and clergy to prevent
southern white evangelical churches from participating in the cause to ex-
tend equal treatment to African Americans and often served as the basis for
active resistance to that cause.
Of course, despite the desires of segregationist Christians, change did
come to the South by the mid-​1960s. The book’s last three chapters detail
how segregationist theology lived on and evolved in the face of the broader
legal and social gains black Americans achieved after 1964. While the world
changed around them, white Baptists and Methodists fought to maintain
white supremacy in arenas where they retained power: their church colleges,
denominational structures, and households. Chapter 3 highlights the con-
tinued influence of segregationist theology in evangelical circles even as seg-
regationist ideas began losing purchase outside that sphere in the mid-​1960s.
The centerpieces of this chapter are parallel narratives detailing the deseg-
regation of Wofford College and Furman University, the respective flagship
institutions of the Methodist and Baptist denominations in South Carolina.
In describing the battles between school administrators who sought to de-
segregate their institutions and the laity of the state’s two largest evangelical
denominations who resisted such measures, this chapter emphasizes white
evangelicals’ continued opposition to black civil rights even as the broader
southern culture was forced by the federal government to acquiesce on inte-
gration in institutions of higher education. Segregationist theology remained
influential for a majority of white Baptists and Methodists who voted against
desegregating the church schools in the mid-​1960s and who withdrew their
support when the colleges integrated against these Christians’ desires.
Chapter 4 traces the transformation of segregationist theology into ideas
of colorblind individualism in the early 1970s. This chapter narrates the in-
tegration of the United Methodist denomination to demonstrate how white
evangelicals adopted a language of colorblindness in an attempt to subvert
racial integration. The story of South Carolina’s Methodists illuminates ways
that religious ideas can adapt to the imperatives of the culture in which they
reside. Accordingly, this chapter demonstrates that while evangelicals were
Another random document with
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 Sa physionomie condense des caractères si multiples et
suréminents que nulle image plastique n’a jamais pu en saisir
l’ensemble.
La médaille du second siècle, où il fait vis-à-vis à saint Pierre, ne
donne qu’un masque traditionnel : le nez bombé, le front nu, les
yeux à fleur de tête, la tension d’une force agissante, et non le
reploiement mystique.
La saint Paul, sculpté à Reims, sur une des tours de la
cathédrale [468] , sublimise la majesté prophétique du Voyant, son
calme surhumain. Le regard des yeux vides semble retourné au
dedans, vers quelque chose d’immuable. La statue élimine l’amour
exalté, la véhémence.
[468] Dans la première niche de la face sud de la tour
méridionale.

Un vitrail du XIII e siècle, à Bourges, présente un Paul meurtri de

tendresse, ivre des ravissements du Mystère. N’allons pas y
chercher la fougue conquérante de l’Apôtre.
Un Flamand, Hugo Van der Goës, dans une statue en bois,
taillée vers 1468 [469] , a su figurer deux aspects du visage de Paul :
le côté gauche de la face marque une rudesse austère ; le côté droit,
par le regard et la flexion des muscles, s’adoucit, se fait
miséricordieux ; et la fermeté des lèvres harmonise les deux
expressions.
[469] Elle se trouve à Louvain, chez M. le chanoine
Thierry.

Depuis la Renaissance, la plupart des artistes, sauf Véronèse,

dans un radieux portrait [470] , ont étrangement assombri la splendeur
du personnage ; Raphaël, Rembrandt, le Gréco lui-même, ont rêvé
un Paul sourcilleux, contracté, amer ; Dürer lui a prêté l’œil torve
d’un hérétique en courroux.
[470] A Florence, au musée des Offices.
 Quant aux modernes, si l’on excepte Maurice Denis, avec la
fresque de Genève, ils n’ont rien entrevu sur lui de révélateur.
Tandis que Pierre et Jean proposent à l’imagination des types
conçus d’après une idée simple, le pénitent ou le contemplatif, Paul
déconcerte par la mobilité de ses traits. On peut toujours dire : Ce
n’est pas lui, alors que c’est bien lui. Saul le persécuteur ne
ressemble point à Paul en extase. Le Paul de l’épître aux Galates
est très loin du Paul des épîtres à Timothée.
Et pourtant c’est bien le même homme que nous reconnaissons,
malgré la transfiguration du Saint.
Dans sa nature, un trait domine tout : la violence passionnée,
non impulsive, mais dogmatique, régie par les principes de sa foi. Il
croit et il exige que les autres croient comme lui, vivent comme lui,
soient soumis à la vérité. La Grâce n’a pas créé en son être un
tempérament ; elle s’est assujetti les puissances dont l’avait orné
Dieu en le prédestinant.
Ses défauts mêmes ont servi les fins divines ; la vélocité de ses
impressions le disposait à l’inconstance ; son humeur vive le tournait
à briser ce qui lui résistait ; son énergie virile aurait pu l’asservir aux
appétits charnels ; l’emportement de ses convictions le vouait au
fanatisme ; la finesse de sa dialectique eût préparé un sophiste.
Mais, dirigés vers l’œuvre juste, son besoin de mouvement, sa
promptitude d’action hâtèrent la marche de l’Évangile. Sa brusquerie
décisive rompit, où il le fallait, les chaînes de l’ancienne Loi. Sa foi
indomptable entraîna les indécis, retint dans l’unité les fragiles
troublés par les discordes. Sa souplesse ajusta aux peuples à
convertir, aux erreurs qu’il voulait abattre, les moyens de persuasion.
Ses infirmités l’aidèrent à demeurer humble ; il parla du péché en
homme qui avait éprouvé dans sa chair le dur conflit.
Avant tout, Paul fut doué d’une volonté magnifique. Il était né
avec le génie du commandement. Resté Juif, il serait devenu un de
ces héros du désespoir qui précipitèrent, en voulant redresser Israël,
sa ruine nationale.
 Il possédait l’œil et le geste du chef, le don de voir la chose à
faire, de convaincre les autres qu’elle devait, pouvait être faite. Il
enseignait par l’exemple ; il montrait ses mains que le travail avait
durcies. Il s’était acquis le droit de dire : qu’est-ce que la faim ?
qu’est-ce que les verges ? que sont les périls des routes et de la
mer ? Tout cela, Dieu aidant, je l’ai franchi. Imitez-moi.
Sa vaillance confond nos mollesses. Nul coureur d’aventures
n’osera comparer ses audaces à celles de l’Apôtre. Son courage
avait pour aiguillon l’esprit de triomphe. Il voyait, au bout du stade, la
couronne. Mais, au lieu de « courir en vain », il visait au terme
infaillible. Il peinait pour la seule gloire du Christ. D’où sa patience
inouïe, la patience de ceux qui ne se lassent pas d’espérer. Prodige
des prodiges, chez le plus impatient des hommes !
Le signe particulier de Paul, c’est qu’une intelligence subtilement
nette sert sa volonté. Mieux qu’un Socrate ou un Sénèque, il regarde
au fond de lui-même :
« Je sais que le bien n’habite pas en moi… Le bien que je
voudrais, je ne le fais pas ; et le mal que je ne voudrais pas, je le
fais [471] … »
[471] Romains VII , 18.

Grand analyste, sans qu’il songe à l’être. Il n’examine jamais par

curiosité ou par orgueil le monde intérieur. Il confronte sa misère
avec les perfections divines ; il scrute sa conscience sous la lampe
de la foi. Aussi aperçoit-il tout d’un coup le point central de ses
faiblesses, la source de ses vertus.
Plus qu’un analyste, Paul est un logicien. Il a besoin de nouer
ses idées autour d’un principe ; le nœud est quelquefois si serré
qu’on ne le défait pas sans peine. Il laisse aux disciples des rhéteurs
les transitions bien ménagées, l’art de couper une idée en deux ou
en quatre, et de balancer les périodes. Il raisonne en intuitif, ou
discourt selon la méthode juive, contournée et violente :
cheminement abrupt des prémisses, imprévu des conclusions. S’il
utilise des formes de dispute hellénique, — le débat avec un
contradicteur fictif qui pousse une objection pour donner lieu de la
résoudre, — ce n’est point en vue d’une volupté oratoire ; s’il
dramatise ses arguments, ce n’est pas un jeu de théâtre. Souvent il
esquisse le profil d’une vérité ; puis il néglige d’en compléter
l’exposition. Il a trop hâte d’énoncer autre chose. Sa logique ne se
prend pas elle-même comme fin ; il veut convaincre, exhorter,
changer les cœurs, les jeter à Dieu.
Paul est un logicien mystique. Il l’était, dès avant sa conversion. Il
témoignait, contre Étienne, parmi les Juifs hellénistes, comme il l’a
fait plus tard, devant les églises, contre les judaïsants. Il défendait la
synagogue, de toute la véhémence d’un amour intraitable.
Dieu se réservait en lui un des plus grands passionnés qui aient
remué la terre. Au début, ses passions se trompaient d’objet.
Dilatée, illuminée par l’Esprit, sa puissance d’amour montra jusqu’où
l’homme, après le rachat du Christ, pouvait, du premier coup,
rebondir.
Le saint, chez Paul, est d’autant plus extraordinaire qu’un
sentiment impétueux de son Moi semblait lui fermer la route de la
sainteté. L’homme sanctifié ne vit plus en soi, pour soi ; il soumet et
conforme sa vie totale à celle de son Dieu. Le miracle, en Paul, c’est
qu’il a pu dire sans mensonge :
« Je vis — non, c’est le Christ qui vit en moi. »
Et pourtant il n’a pas cessé d’être lui, d’être Paul, avec toute la
misère et toute la noblesse de son humanité vraie.
Plus il se fait l’esclave du Christ, plus il devient puissant et libre,
plus il est lui-même.
Au lieu de commander dans un petit clan juif, il gouverne par ses
conseils l’Orient et l’Occident ; il affermit une discipline qui va
s’étendre à l’univers.
Il méprise la science des rabbins, les disputes profanes des
philosophes. Mais la science qu’il reçoit d’une révélation ou des
Apôtres ouvre à son désir les trésors de l’incompréhensible sagesse.
 Il aimait, dans un sens étroit, ses frères en Israël. Maintenant sa
charité embrasse les âmes des croyants et des infidèles ; il aime en
Dieu tout ce qui peut être aimé.
Il n’exerçait qu’un pouvoir éphémère et, pour violenter, pour
détruire. A présent, Dieu lui communique une part de son
omnipotence. Il chasse les démons, il guérit des malades, il
ressuscite des morts.
Les murs d’un cachot, les chaînes ont beau le retrancher du
monde des vivants, sa parole sort plus libre que jamais, plus
efficace.
Il ne connaissait que les joies terrestres, que la justice des
hommes. Et voici qu’il a été ravi jusqu’au troisième ciel. Il attend le
triomphe de l’éternelle Justice et la plénitude d’un bonheur dont il ne
peut se faire une idée.
Tout cela n’est point le privilège de Paul ; quiconque entrera, par
le baptême, dans le royaume du Père, sera, comme lui, l’héritier ;
loin d’espérer, pour lui seul, la possession du Seigneur, Paul veut
que tous soient sauvés ; il se juge indigne entre les indignes, « le
dernier des Apôtres… un avorton, le premier des pécheurs ». Il ne
se glorifie que des coups reçus, des opprobres sans mesure ; par là,
il est certain de ressembler à son modèle.
Mais avec cette humilité coexiste une conscience dévorante de
sa mission. Le Christ et lui ne faisant plus qu’un, il dogmatise en son
nom, il se donne comme exemple, il développe toute l’ampleur de
son génie.
Ses actes et sa doctrine réconcilient des qualités dissemblables,
même, en apparence, incompatibles : la rudesse et la mansuétude ;
la dignité et l’abaissement ; l’ironie et l’onction ; la décision
foudroyante et la prudence flexible ; l’esprit de liberté et la
soumission ; la hauteur contemplative et le sens pratique ; la fidélité
aux principes transmis et l’essor vers l’avenir. Ce grand intellectuel
est le plus charitable des missionnaires ; ce Juif est le plus
universaliste des théologiens.
 Paul écrivant à Philémon en faveur du fugitif Onésime, c’est,
humainement, le type accompli de la bonté.
Paul pesant les raisons qu’il a, pour lui, de désirer mourir, et,
celles, plus fortes, qui lui font souhaiter, pour ses frères, de vivre
encore, c’est le type surnaturellement accompli du chrétien.
Ce que peut être un homme et un saint parfait, nous le trouvons
en Paul plus absolument qu’en nul autre, Il serait vain de chercher
quelle perfection lui fut départie à un degré moindre ; elles se
déploient chez lui, dans un merveilleux équilibre ; et, quelle qu’en
soit la magnificence, il demeure près de nous ; l’élément originel de
sa condition humaine subsiste, converti en vertus ; le Saint est notre
frère par ses infirmités ; rien de ce qui lui fut personnel n’est aboli ; il
nous aide à entrevoir comment les élus, glorifiés, transformés selon
l’effigie du Christ, conservent la figure de leur première vie.

Le Docteur des nations.

Sa théologie est immense ; nul commentaire n’en extraira toutes

les richesses. Le plus étonnant peut-être dans sa doctrine, c’est une
fermeté précise excluant l’hypothèse d’une formation flottante, d’un
assemblage d’éléments épars.
Elle repose sur le dogme du péché d’origine ; cette notion lui
vient de la théodicée juive, de l’Ancien Testament [472] . Le mystère
de la faute, tangible par ses suites, suffirait à justifier la nécessité de
la Rédemption. Tous les hommes ne sont qu’une même chair ; ils se
transmettent l’inclination au mal, hérédité d’Adam qui, en plus d’un
sens, pourtant, était la préfiguration du Christ « à venir [473] ».
[472] Les plus acharnés à faire de Paul un syncrétiste
sont forcés de le reconnaître ; sur ce point, il ne doit rien à
l’esprit grec, il le contredit totalement (voir Toussaint,
l’Hellénisme et l’apôtre Paul, p. 345).
 [473] Voir Rom. V , 14 et le Commentaire de saint
Thomas (t. I, p. 76).

Le genre humain n’avait pas en lui de quoi satisfaire ; il fallait un

propitiateur. Dieu seul, en se communiquant à sa créature par
l’Incarnation, pouvait lui rendre la faculté de redevenir son image. Le
Christ a tout réconcilié. Mais, pour sauver des esclaves, il a pris lui-
même la forme d’un esclave ; il s’est anéanti jusqu’à la mort, et à la
mort la plus infamante. Humiliation annoncée par les prophètes,
vérifiée dans l’histoire humaine de Jésus et continuée en ses
disciples. Il est ressuscité pour que nous ressuscitions avec Lui, non
simplement afin de prouver sa puissance, mais voulant que l’homme
récupère en lui, par lui, la vie éternelle. Cette vie est un pur don ; elle
s’appelle la béatitude ; elle s’appelle aussi la grâce, effusion de vérité
dans l’intelligence, pouvoir, dans la volonté, d’accomplir le bien.
L’assurance du salut acquis, nous l’aurions, même si Paul ne
nous l’apportait point. Ce qu’il nous apprend, nous le saurions par
les Évangiles et l’enseignement de l’Église. Cependant, sur ces
conquêtes essentielles, il ajoute des clartés merveilleuses, il a les
paroles du génie inspiré :
« Les dons et l’appel de Dieu sont sans repentance [474] … »
[474] Rom. XI , 29.

« Si par la faute d’un seul la mort a régné du fait d’un seul, à plus
forte raison ceux qui reçoivent la surabondance de la grâce et de la
justice régneront-ils dans la vie par le fait du seul Jésus-
Christ [475] . »
[475] Id. V , 17.

Quand il voit dans le Christ la tête du corps de l’Église, il énonce

mieux qu’une métaphore ; il rend sensible un fait surnaturel plus vrai
que la loi de la gravitation. Car c’est bien du Christ, comme de la
tête, que descend aux membres toute la plénitude vivifiante :
« Il est la tête des bienheureux qui lui sont unis par la gloire ; des
saints qui lui sont unis par la charité ; des pécheurs qui tiennent
encore à lui par la foi, bien qu’ils n’aient plus la charité ; ensuite des
infidèles qui peuvent lui être unis, quoiqu’ils ne le soient pas encore
en réalité, mais qui lui seront un jour unis effectivement selon l’ordre
de la prédestination divine ; et enfin de tous ceux qui pourraient être
unis à lui, mais qui ne le seront jamais effectivement, comme les
infidèles qui vivent encore en ce monde et ne sont pas
prédestinés [476] . »
[476] Saint Thomas, De l’Humanité de Notre-Seigneur
Jésus-Christ, ch. VI .

La prédestination ! Paul affronte ce mystère, d’un regard

pathétique, mais dont la tranquillité ne se dément pas, comme on
élève les yeux sans vertige vers le gouffre d’une nuit comblée
d’étoiles. Il sait que Dieu est juste ; cela, comment en douter,
puisque c’est Dieu ? Celui qui a créé les âmes veut le salut de
toutes. L’homme, asservi par la chair, reçoit de l’Esprit la liberté dans
la foi et l’amour. Pourquoi les uns, sans mérite apparent, obtiennent-
ils ces privilèges ? Pourquoi les autres sont-ils déshérités ? L’argile,
si le potier en fait « un vase d’ignominie », ne peut lui demander
pourquoi. Paul songe aux Juifs endurcis ; les ténèbres sont leur
partage ; Dieu en est-il cause ? Ils repoussent la lumière, ils la
méprisent, ils ne veulent que l’anéantir ; et pourtant elle viendra sur
eux. Quant aux infidèles, s’ils n’ont pas même la Loi, ils seront jugés
sans la Loi ; ils sont leur propre loi, ayant cette clarté naturelle qui
illumine tout homme en ce monde.
Mais, à l’égard du juste, Paul voit les trois étapes de sa carrière
bienheureuse : il est prédestiné par l’élection divine, justifié par sa
foi, par ses œuvres et celles de ses frères ; il sera enfin glorifié.
Cette gloire, il ne saurait y entrer, sans s’être uni au corps mystique
de l’Église universelle, sans la communion des saints, la vertu des
sacrements et des rites.
Quand l’Apôtre « complète dans sa chair ce qui manque aux
tribulations du Christ pour son corps qui est l’Église », il ne croit pas
seulement endurer ce qu’aurait pâti le Christ à sa place ; il entend
que, s’il souffre après son Maître et comme lui, l’efficacité des
mérites est accrue dans l’Église ; l’œuvre rédemptrice s’amplifie en
puissance par cette union mystique [477] .
[477] Une rencontre imprévue, au moment où j’écris
ces pages, met sur ma table les paroles d’un croyant de
Lamennais. Dans la préface dédiée au peuple (c’est-à-
dire, selon l’Évangile de 1834, aux opprimés), je trouve
ces phrases : « A présent, si je vous parlais de leurs
souffrances (des souffrances de ceux qui vous aiment),
on me jetterait avec eux dans les cachots. J’y
descendrais avec une grande joie si votre misère pouvait
être un peu allégée ; mais vous n’en retireriez aucun
soulagement, et c’est pourquoi il faut attendre et prier
Dieu qu’il abrège l’épreuve. »
Étrange amoindrissement de l’intelligence spirituelle et
de la charité chez le prêtre libertaire ! Il se dispense de
souffrir pour les misérables et avec eux, parce que cela
ne servirait à rien. Comparez le langage de Paul dans les
chaînes.

Tous ces dogmes, dans la bouche de Paul, prennent un accent

d’autorité décisif ; d’autant plus qu’ils sont liés à son expérience, aux
faits divins ou humains dont il tient la certitude.
Mais, pour le monde moderne, ce sont des vérités presque
mortes. A la notion de la nature déchue une philosophie hérétique
ou néo-païenne a substitué le plus faux des principes : l’homme naît
bon. Donc le Rédempteur est inutile. L’idée de la prédestination s’est
déformée en une sorte de fatalisme qui laisse l’âme indifférente à
son avenir essentiel. Le conflit de la chair et de l’esprit s’est vu
simplifié : la chair étant redevenue souveraine, l’esprit n’a plus qu’à
la servir et à se renier. Au lieu de la Communion des Saints, on est
revenu en arrière, à une conception de la solidarité toute matérielle,
comme celle des atomes pressés ensemble malgré eux, ignorants
de ce qu’ils sont et de ce qu’ils veulent. L’affreux mot « bloc »
représente la métaphysique de nos contemporains.
Paul est, plus que jamais, à cette heure, le docteur des gentils.
Les nations auraient besoin de rapprendre, auprès de lui, les
éléments du salut.
 Il leur expliquerait comment le salaire du péché, c’est la mort, et
de quelle maladie elles dépérissent.
Sa morale, enclose dans sa théologie, leur donnerait la méthode
de l’unique guérison. En disant aux hommes : Vivez dans le Christ et
selon lui, il leur enseigne toute force, toute joie, toute perfection.
L’exemple qu’il leur propose ne s’adresse pas simplement à des
anachorètes ; son christianisme est social. Il a dit sur le mariage les
choses les plus hautes et les plus sensées. L’amour des époux est,
devant ses yeux, la figure du Mystère où le Christ s’unit à son
Église ; l’homme doit aimer son épouse, « de même que le Christ a
aimé l’Église et s’est livré pour elle [478] ». Seulement, la femme doit
être soumise à son mari comme elle obéit « au Seigneur ». Il conçoit
le mariage indissoluble et saint, comme le Christ l’a voulu. Mais il
découvre à la sainteté de l’institution des raisons sublimes qu’on
n’apercevrait pas sans lui.
[478] Éphés. V , 25.

Entre les maîtres et les serviteurs, il exige, des uns, la bonté, des
autres, la droiture diligente, la bonne volonté, comme de gens « qui
servent le Seigneur et non pas des hommes ».
A l’égard des pouvoirs publics, il entend que « tous soient soumis
aux autorités supérieures. Car toute autorité vient de Dieu… Celui
qui résiste à l’autorité résiste à l’ordre voulu de Dieu [479] ».
[479] Éphés. VI , 7.

Il fait un précepte à chacun de travailler pour n’être point à

charge au prochain et subvenir aux indigents. La division du travail,
l’ordre dans la vie, la dignité lui paraissent, même en un sens
surnaturel, des règles nécessaires.
Au-dessus de tout, il met deux vertus qu’ignorait le monde
païen : l’humilité, la charité. L’hymne où Paul, en magnifique poète, a
célébré celle-ci, résonnera peut-être sans charme aux oreilles de
nos philanthropes et des altruistes satisfaits d’eux-mêmes. Si connu
et vieux qu’il soit, il garde cependant une fraîcheur divine, comme
une chose improvisée derrière la porte du Paradis :
« Quand je parlerais les langues des hommes et des anges, si je
n’ai pas la charité, je ne suis qu’un airain bruyant ou une cymbale
qui vibre. Quand j’aurais le don de prophétie, quand je connaîtrais
tous les mystères et toute science, quand j’aurais toute la foi, une foi
à déplacer les montagnes, si je n’ai pas la charité, je ne suis rien.
Quand je donnerais en bouchées de pain tout ce que je possède,
quand même je livrerais mon corps pour être brûlé, si je n’ai pas la
charité, cela ne me sert de rien.
« La charité est patiente, elle est bonne. La charité n’envie pas.
La charité n’est ni glorieuse, ni gonflée d’orgueil. Elle ne fait rien
d’inconvenant, elle ne cherche pas son intérêt, elle ne s’encolère
point, elle n’impute pas le mal. Elle ne se réjouit pas de l’injustice,
mais elle se réjouit de la vérité. Elle excuse tout, elle croit tout, elle
endure tout.
« La charité ne succombera jamais. Si vous parlez des
prophéties, elles s’évanouiront ; des langues, elles cesseront ; de la
science, elle aura son terme. Notre science n’est que partielle et
nous prophétisons partiellement. Quand viendra ce qui parfait, alors
ce qui est partiel s’abolira. Lorsque j’étais un petit enfant, je parlais
comme un petit enfant, je raisonnais comme un petit enfant. Lorsque
je suis devenu homme fait, j’ai rejeté ce qui était du petit enfant. A
présent, nous voyons les choses comme dans un miroir, en énigme.
Alors nous verrons face à face. Mais alors je connaîtrai parfaitement,
comme je suis connu. A présent donc demeurent la foi, l’espérance
et la charité, ces trois choses. Mais la plus grande est la
charité [480] . »
[480] I Cor. XIII .

L’admirable d’un tel mouvement, c’est qu’il donne la perception

de l’illimité dans l’élan vers Dieu. Et pourquoi Paul ceint-il la charité
d’un diadème immortel, comme s’il voyait en elle la Mère du Christ ?
L’amour est le principe de tout ; seul, il établit entre Dieu et le monde
l’unité, non l’unité aveugle du rêve panthéiste, mais l’unité libre et
consentie, celle qui n’épuisera point sa plénitude, puisque le créé, à
jamais, se connaîtra créé au sein du Père des lumières.
En attendant, l’homme et la création ne vivent que d’un désir :
atteindre cette unité, être affranchis des servitudes corruptibles
« pour avoir part à la liberté de la gloire des enfants de Dieu [481] ».
La nature gémit, elle est dans les douleurs de l’enfantement. Nous
qui avons les prémices de l’Esprit, nous gémissons en nous-mêmes,
sous la loi de notre corps mortel, dans l’attente de sa rédemption.
[481] Rom. VIII , 21-23.

Le péché a obscurci l’univers ; il fait peser même sur les

animaux, sur la matière, la tristesse d’un désordre. Mais, lorsque le
Seigneur Jésus « apparaîtra du ciel avec les anges de sa puissance,
qu’il aura fait justice de ceux qui ne connaissent pas Dieu, qui
n’obéissent pas à l’Évangile [482] », l’ennemie, la Mort sera enfin
détruite. La splendeur qui investira l’âme et le corps des élus se
réfléchira sur les cieux nouveaux, sur la terre sanctifiée. Et Dieu sera
tout en tous.
[482] II Thessal. I , 7-8.

Paul est le prophète de l’unité dernière.

L’attente du « grand jour [483] » persiste chez lui, au fond de ses
désirs, alors même qu’il paraît certain de ne point voir la Parousie. Il
sait qu’au delà de la mort il sera bientôt avec le Christ. Mais son
propre salut ne lui suffit pas. Il veut la conversion d’Israël,
l’avènement du Juge, la fin des iniquités, la consommation de la
paix.
[483] II Tim. I , 18.

Il est l’homme qui espère, il n’a pas enseigné théoriquement

l’espérance. Traité comme un faux frère, honni, flagellé, lapidé,
enchaîné, il ne cesse jamais d’espérer et de semer l’espoir avec ses
mains de feu. Auprès de la gloire promise, que pesaient pour lui les
tribulations ? Il donna son sang en témoignage des choses qu’il
espérait. Si l’on ne peut admettre tout à fait l’argument de Pascal :
« Je crois volontiers les histoires dont les témoins se font égorger »,
car les fausses religions et les hérésies ont eu leurs martyrs, Paul se
présente comme le témoin du Christ ressuscité, du Christ que les
Apôtres avaient vu avant lui, dont Thomas avait palpé les plaies,
dont lui-même avait entendu la voix et senti le regard humain. La
preuve du témoignage de Paul, c’est que sa foi a changé le monde.
Elle ne l’a qu’en partie changé. Jésus a prédit que les puissances
de la mort ne prévaudraient pas contre son Église, non qu’avant son
retour son Église prévaudrait contre elles. Il y aura des heures —
c’est Lui qui les annonce — où la foi déclinera si affreusement que
les chrétiens — les faibles — se demanderont par quelle voie le
Seigneur aura le dernier mot. Ils reliront alors l’épître aux Romains.
Ils comprendront mieux qu’elle n’était pas pour le seul Abraham,
mais pour nous et pour eux la promesse de fidélité.
Paul sera le clairon des suprêmes espérances.
Jusqu’au terme des siècles, nuit et jour s’il le faut, le bon soldat
du Christ courra par les rues du camp, sonnera l’alerte et la charge ;
il affermira au cœur des braves l’alacrité, ralliera les blessés et les
lâches ; il ranimera jusqu’aux morts pour le combat où la défaite est
impossible. Mais ce clairon de guerre, par une merveille ineffable,
aura des accents humbles, d’une angélique douceur. Il chantera le
règne de l’amour et la paix sans fin.

1923-1925.
 TABLE DES CHAPITRES

Préface 7
I. — Saul le persécuteur 29
II. — Saul le voyant. Sur la route de Damas 61
III. — La vocation de Saul 72
IV. — Ses premiers pas d’apôtre 80
V. — A Tarse. Les années obscures 92
VI. — Le grand départ 105
VII. — A Chypre. Paul et la puissance romaine 117
VIII. — La porte de la foi 127
IX. — Le conflit sur les observances 147
X. — En marche vers l’Occident. Paul chez les Galates. A
Philippes. Le témoignage du sang 161
XI. — Paul et les Juifs de Thessalonique 178
XII. — Le discours de l’Aréopage 187
XIII. — L’église de Corinthe 199
XIV. — Le tumulte d’Éphèse 217
XV. — Retour en Hellade. L’épître aux Romains 235
XVI. — Paul monte à Jérusalem une dernière fois. Son
arrestation 253
XVII. — L’appel à César 276
XVIII. — La traversée terrible 288
XIX. — A Rome. L’enchaîné du Christ 298
XX. — Le martyr 315
XXI. — La figure de saint Paul 334

5744. — Tours, Imp. E. Arrault et Cie.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAINT PAUL ***

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