Go Tell It on the Mountain

by James Baldwin

It was his hatred and his intelligence that he cherished, the one feeding the other.

though he had been born in the faith and had been surrounded all his life by the saints and by their prayers and their rejoicing, and though the tabernacle in which they worshipped was more completely real to him than the several precarious homes in which he and his family had lived, John’s heart was hardened against the Lord. His father was God’s minister, the ambassador of the King of Heaven, and John could not bow before the throne of grace without first kneeling to his father. On his refusal to do this had his life depended, and John’s secret heart had flourished in its wickedness until the day his sin first overtook him.

Beautifully tragic depiction of how hypocrisy hides within those who proclaim to be the most devout. Their actions directly propel people away from the church as they act in opposition to the word.

“Your daddy beats you,” she said, “because he loves you.” Roy laughed. “That ain’t the kind of love I understand, old lady. What you reckon he’d do if he didn’t love me?”

all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs.

🤏🏻🤏🏻🤏🏻🤏🏻