November 25, 2016 Show with Joshua Guthman on “How a Jewish History Professor From L.A. Was Captivated by the A Cappella Worship of Primitive Baptists”

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DR. JOSHUA GUTHMAN, Associate Professor of History at Berea College, Berea, KY, & author of: “Strangers Below: Primitive Baptists & American Culture” will be my guest on “Iron Sharpens Iron” Radio to address: “How a Jewish History Professor From L.A. Was Captivated by the A Cappella Worship of Primitive Baptists” Subscribe:

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.
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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
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Now here's our host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon
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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming.
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This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 25th day of November 2016, the day after Thanksgiving, and I am hoping that all of you who are listening had a blessed time of not only eating delicious food, but more importantly of fellowshipping with those you love, giving thanks to God for all of the blessings that he has bestowed upon you, and I'm sure you would, if you were going to be honest with yourself, that those blessings would be more than you could possibly number or even remember.
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So I hope that that was indeed a blessed time for you and perhaps it's still going on, perhaps you still have relatives lingering around your house, maybe you're actually now praying that they leave, but I hope that wherever you are and whoever your loved ones are that they arrive safely home when they journey or when you journey from wherever you may be.
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Today we are having a guest return to this program, but this is actually the very first time he's being interviewed on this program, and that may seem like an oxymoron to you, but the first time we had
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Dr. Joshua Guthman on our program we had technical difficulties that demanded that we cut the program short unfortunately, but now that those technical issues have been rectified, we are
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God willing going to be having a full two -hour interview with Dr. Joshua Guthman.
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Now this this interview is a bit out of my wheelhouse as those of you who listen to Iron Sharpens Iron know.
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I most often have as my guests people who are in theological agreement with me or who are at least share my
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Christian faith, but today we have a Jewish guest on Iron Sharpens Iron because I found his love for a particular type of Christian music quite fascinating, especially since he has been captivated so much by this music that he has written a book titled,
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Strangers Below Primitive Baptists and American Culture, and today we are discussing how a
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Jewish history professor from LA was captivated by the a cappella worship of primitive Baptists, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.
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Joshua Guthman. Hi Chris, thank you so much and thank you so much for having me back a second time.
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I feel really optimistic that this is gonna go perfectly well and I'm just really grateful that I get to come back.
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And by the way, I forgot to ask you before we went on the air, but is it Guthman or Guthman?
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No Guthman, you got it right, Guthman, just phonetically. And you are
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Associate Professor of History at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. Why don't you tell our listeners something about Berea College?
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Oh, Berea College is an amazing place. It's a special place. It was founded as a interracial co -educational college in slave -holding era
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Kentucky in 1855, and it remains dedicated to that heritage of equality and an ethic of Christian impartial love.
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It is only for students who are poor, so you need to, it's a tuition -free college, so you need to economically qualify.
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And so our mission here is to serve excellent students, but students who are in need from the
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Greater Appalachia region. So we have about 80 % of our students from what we call Greater Appalachia, 10 % from elsewhere in the
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U .S., and then 10 % students come from places abroad. Now what is your particular upbringing, the roots of your family?
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I know that you're Jewish, but were you raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, or was it a conservative?
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I was raised in a conservative Jewish home, so that's like, if you have three, if you think about Judaism having sort of three major denominations,
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I'm fudging things a little bit, there are really more than three, but if you think about, let's just think about the three main ones,
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Orthodox being, let's say, the most strict, most strictly observant, Reform being the more liberal, and then conservative would be sort of in the middle.
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And that's my tradition. Now how did someone of that background wind up at a college,
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Berea College, that identifies itself as Christian? It's such a roundabout, it is such a roundabout path, but, you know, my parents asked me that exact same question,
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Chris. What happens is, you know, Berea takes all comers, okay?
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So there is no... Berea, the college, understands itself as Christian.
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Oh, it's a very open, liberal understanding of Christianity, but there is no sort of faith test or anything to be a faculty member here.
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The college has a Christian identity, but it's not a Bible college. And then
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I wound up here because my scholarship and my interest, you know, really brought me here.
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The stuff that I was working on, on Primitive Baptist, on Southern Evangelicalism, or something that just that found a home here, and it was just a great match.
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So here I am in small -town Kentucky, and I'm That's good.
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And I have to remind our listeners that your host, Chris Arnzen, has not fallen away from his strict conservative
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Calvinistic ideology. I am not a modern ecumenist or anything like that, but I do find this story fascinating.
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And I sometimes do like to have interviews with people who are on the outside of my background, outside of Christianity, who are looking in to get an idea of how they are viewing what they are seeing.
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I have done this with representatives of other groups before, and I'm looking forward to this interview.
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One of the things I wanted to start with right away, before we even go into a discussion of Strangers Below, Primitive Baptist and American Culture, which is the title of your book, and also before we go into a verbal description of this music, and how you discovered it, and what it has come to mean to you,
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I wanted to play a little bit of this music first, so our audience has an idea of what
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I'm talking about. This first song happens to be one of my favorite songs that I have ever heard, sung by Primitive Baptists.
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The Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church, actually, is the group that is singing this song, and Oh Jesus My Savior is the title of the hymn.
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And this is the kind of music that I happen to absolutely love. I fell in love with it the first time
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I heard it. There are people who absolutely hate it, there are people who are just indifferent about it, but I just love it.
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I can't imagine how people can disagree with me on this. I think it's beautiful music, in fact, even our
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Jewish guest obviously does, which drew him into studying Primitive Baptists in a deeper way.
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And also, I want to make a disclaimer about Primitive Baptists as well. I happen to be a Calvinist Baptist, theologically
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Reformed Baptist, but I do have some very serious disagreements theologically with the
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Primitive Baptists, and I also have to be clear that I am not attempting to broad -brush
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Primitive Baptists either, and create a monolith out of them. There are different theological perspectives even within the
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Primitive Baptist movement, and so I just want to make sure that I made that clear, that I understand that, because at times it may sound like I am broad -brushing when
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I describe them, or even when my guest perhaps is describing them. But here is
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Elder Walter Evans and his version, or his congregation's version, of Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.
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I hope that you enjoy this, and may the Lord bless you with it. ...prayer...
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...morning... ...day... ...day... ...day...
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...of a crystal fountain... ...of a crystal fountain...
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...whence the healing streams do flow... ...whence the healing streams do flow...
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...from the fire that clouded pillars... ...that made fire...
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...made fire... ...made pillar...
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...made me all my journey through... ...made me... ...made
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me through... ...strong deliverer... ...strong deliverer...
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...strong deliverer...
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...do thou still my strength and cheer... ...do thou still my strength and cheer...
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...lead me with the heavenly manner... ...lead me with the heavenly manner...
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...send this fire... ...my
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sword and shield and banner... ...send my sword and shield and banner...
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...to my hope of righteousness... ...send my hope of righteousness...
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Well, I don't know what you thought of that, but I think that that is absolutely beautiful music, and tell us about when you,
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Dr. Guthman, when you first heard this music, tell us how that came about, and what was it about the music that drew you to it?
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Well, what happened... ...the whole... Well, it was strange in the kind of accident, but a beautiful accident for me.
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I was a graduate student, I was working in Folklife archives during the summer to pay my bills, and I was doing rather boring data entry work, but the perk, or the key perk, for somebody like me, who's so interested in all different types of American roots music, was that I could listen to anything in the collection, and the collection is vast, it's enormous, it's one of the...
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it's really probably the preeminent collection of American folk music that we have.
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This is the Southern Folklife Collection at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. And I would do my data entry, and I'd play, you know,
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I'd take something off the shelf, an LP, or a cassette, or field recordings, whatever. So one day
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I just, I saw a cassette on the shelf, and the spine of it said Primitive Baptist, and I didn't know what that was, who those people were at all.
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I was simply intrigued by the name. I put the tape on, because why not?
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And what I heard just struck me dead. I'd never heard anything like it in my life.
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It was very much like what we just heard, people singing loudly, very slowly, often in minor keys.
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They were singing, they didn't really have conventional harmonies, the voices would kind of go in and out of phase.
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They were together, but not quite. It sounded like great crashing waves of sound. It sounded mysterious to me, it sounded luminous, it sounded funereal.
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It reminded me of a kind of singing I'd heard in synagogue growing up.
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To me, it was arresting. I just could not stop listening.
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After that, I just wanted to know more. Who were these people? Why did they sing that way? Tell me more. So I just kept reading and listening.
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Yeah, I have nicknamed this music Appalachian Gregorian Chant.
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Yeah, that is absolutely apt. Absolutely, yes.
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There's something, sort of the sacred air of it just seems to come off of the music and it has a kind of reverberation, sort of that quality to it, like Gregorian Chant, even though theologically it's quite different.
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Yes. In fact, I'm going to play another song right now by the
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Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church. It's not the one that I was trying to play in the beginning. Maybe I'll be able to play that one a little later because that is one of my favorites, if not my favorite song.
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But this is Oh Tell Me No More. It's subtitled as Sweet Harmony.
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Oh Tell Me No More by the Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church. I hope you enjoy this as well. Oh tell me no more, the time for such trifles with me now is o 'er.
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A country I've found, where true joys abound.
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To dwell I'm determined, a man bestow, what joy, strength, and comfort to see
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Christ above. Nondescript, how wondrous my journey will prove.
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Grace boils, I shall win from death, hell, and sin.
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Midst outward affliction shall feel
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Christ within. And still which is best
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I in His dear breast as at the beginning find pardon and rest.
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When I am to die, receive me a cry.
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For Jesus has loved me, I cannot tell why.
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But this I do find, we, too, are so joyed.
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He'll not live in glory, help me, lead me not.
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This blessing is mine through favor divine.
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And oh, my dear Jesus, the praise shall be thine.
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If heaven will be in harmony sweet, and glory to Jesus will then be complete.
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Well, that was Oh, Tell Me No More by Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church, another one of my favorite songs by the
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Primitive Baptists. And I'm going to read the description of the book that Jonathan Guthman has written, or Guthman, I'm sorry, has written, published by the
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University of North Carolina Press. I'm going to read the publisher's description. Before the
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Bible Belt fastened itself across the South, competing factions of evangelicals fought over their faith's future.
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And a contrarian sect, self -named the Primitive Baptists, made it stand.
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Joshua Guthman here tells the story of how a band of anti -missionary and anti -revivalistic
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Baptists defended Calvinism, America's oldest Protestant creed, for what they feared were the unbridled forces of evangelical greed and power.
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In their harrowing confessions of faith, and in the quavering uncertainty of their singing,
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Guthman finds the emotional catalyst of the Primitives' early 19th century movement, a searing experience of doubt that motivated believers rather than paralyzed them.
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But Primitives' old orthodoxies proved startlingly flexible.
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After the Civil War, African American Primitives elevated a renewed Calvinism, coursing with freedom's energies.
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Tracing the faith into the 20th century, Guthman demonstrates how a Primitive Baptist spirit, unmoored from its original theological underpinnings, seeped into the music of renowned
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Southern artists such as Roscoe Holcomb and Ralph Stanley, whose high, lonesome sound appealed to popular audiences searching for meaning in the drift of post -war
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American life. In an account that weaves together religious, emotional, and musical histories,
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Strangers Below demonstrates the unlikely but enduring influence of Primitive Baptists on American religious and cultural life.
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And that is the description of the book that we are discussing, Strangers Below, Primitive Baptists, and American Culture.
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And so, Dr. Guthman, from falling in love with this music, as you initially did, how did that eventually lead to you writing a book about a denomination that identifies itself as Christian and yet you are self -admittedly a
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Jewish historian? Yeah, so what happened was I could sort of pick up where I left off, where I was fascinated by this music and I wanted to know who was making these sounds and why they were singing that way.
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And I listened a lot and then I researched and what I found out about the Primitives was fascinating.
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Are you there, Chris? Yes, I'm here. Okay. So what
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I found, my search took me to the early 19th century and a fight between Baptists and then really a fight between this group called the
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Primitive Baptists and Evangelical culture more widely. And the
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Primitive Baptists emerged in the early 19th century as opponents of missionary societies,
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Bible tract societies, theological seminaries, and revivals.
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And this was so strange to me, so odd, so unexpected. This was unlike any kind of Evangelical church in the
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South that I'd ever heard of. And I wanted to know more about them, again.
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So I kept learning more and more and they just fascinated me. So the music fascinated me, the early history fascinated me, and on and on it went.
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And, you know, eventually you find yourself writing a whole book. And by the way,
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I'm going to give our email address out now if anybody would like to join us on the air. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.
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chrisarnson at gmail dot com. I also want to give a little summary of what the distinctives would be from what
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I, as a Reformed Baptist, also a thoroughgoing Five -Point
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Calvinist, but unlike the Primitive Baptists, the historically
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Reformed denominations, going even back to John Calvin himself, many of the
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Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and Reformed Baptists, which were known by different names in centuries past, such as Particular Baptists and so on.
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They strongly, although believing that God is the author and finisher of our faith as Christians, God is sovereign and in control over all things, but he uses means, and he uses evangelism and the preaching of the
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Gospel as his means by which he regenerates dead sinners, sinners who were spiritually dead, lifeless individuals.
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Whereas the Primitive Baptists do not believe that God uses means to awaken lost souls.
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God does this, according to Primitive Baptists, completely apart from evangelism, apart from preaching, and apart from handing out tracts and so on, and they believe that those things comfort the sheep.
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They instill truth in the minds and hearts of those who
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God chooses to give new birth, but they are not instruments that bring about new birth.
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Would that be a fairly correct summary according to your understanding, Dr. Guthman? That is absolutely spot -on.
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Absolutely spot -on. And I think it's important to note how different the
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Primitive Baptist theology is from so many other evangelical groups, you know, from other
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Baptists, but just, yeah, within the Reformed tradition, they're sort of out, they're not quite,
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I don't know if I'd say they're out on their own island, but they're different. Yes, and they would receive the nickname from many
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Calvinists, hyper -Calvinists, they would call many within the Primitive Baptist movement, and not even exclusively
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Primitive Baptists, but those of other denominations like the Netherlands Reformed and some others, they have been called hyper -Calvinistic.
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But again, I have to revert back to my caveat at the beginning that Primitive Baptists are not a monolith.
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Some have broken away from that strict idea that God does not use means and have become very evangelistic.
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In fact, my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries is a Reformed Baptist. He was invited to speak at a progressive
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Primitive Baptist church and they were nearly identical in their theology and so on to Dr.
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White, if not completely identical. But we are going to go to a station break now.
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If you would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com
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And we ask of you to please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the
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USA. And this is the song I'm going to now that I mentioned in the beginning of the program. Please God, please inspire me to Then draw me the way
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Salvation to find
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To sink in, in gloomy despair
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See, relieve me And in me not fear
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In vain I attempt to Describe what
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I feel The languid
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Jesus Is precious, my soul's in a flame
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I'm raised to a rapture
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While praising His name
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I find Him in singing I find
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Him in prayer In sweet meditation
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He always is near My constant companion
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O may we never Be true to Jesus He dwells in my heart
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I love Thee, my Savior I love
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Thee, my Lord Thy dear people
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Thy ways and life With tender compassion
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I love sinners too Since Jesus has died to Redeem them from war
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My Jesus is precious I cannot
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O sinners, despise me
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His love to declare His love overwhelms me
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Thy high wings I fly To praise
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Him in mansions Prepare Him the sky
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Then millions of ages
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My soul would employ
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In praising my Jesus My love and my joy
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Without interruption
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When all the glad throng
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With pleasures unceasing
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Unite in the song That was
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Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church O Jesus my Savior And we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors
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Welcome back, if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is
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Dr. Joshua Guthman And he is Associate Professor of History at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky We are discussing his book,
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Strangers Below, Primitive Baptists in American Culture And we're also discussing the hauntingly beautiful music of the
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Primitive Baptists that I have nicknamed Appalachian Gregorian Chant I don't know if anybody else has ever called it that Have you ever heard anybody describe it that way before me?
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No, but I love it, I think it's perfect And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com
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chrisarnson at gmail .com And we do have quite a number of listeners who have written questions for our guest today
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And I'm looking forward to getting Dr. Guthman's responses to these questions
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But if you'd like to join us with your own question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com
40:36
C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com And please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the
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USA First we have Susan in Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York The Primitive Baptist worship is unadorned and centers around acapella singing
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Has this approach to the worship of God been used by other denominations? The quick answer is yes.
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The one that comes to mind, immediately to me in the American context at least
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Is the Churches of Christ, and they split off from the
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Disciples of Christ or Christians by the early 20th century And a key issue animating that split was the use of musical instruments in church during worship
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And folks belonging to the Church of Christ said no, no, no instruments
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They said they couldn't find any sort of explicit scriptural warrant for that kind of a thing
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Whereas Christian churches or Disciples of Christ were more,
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I would say, more flexible Because they could not find anything scripturally that had an explicit prohibition on the use of instruments in church worship
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Then it was an issue that they could, I guess, weigh, an issue they could consider
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So the Church of Christ issue is the one that comes immediately to mind to me Yeah, that would be from what is known as the
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Restorationist Movement of the 19th century Led by Alexander Campbell and some other figures are known to be a part of that movement
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And the three branches that you have today are the Church of Christ, acapella
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You have the Churches of Christ and Christian churches, which is a conservative group that uses music
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And then you have the Disciples of Christ denomination, which has become, for the most part, a very liberal denomination
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And would have very little in common now with the other two groups that are conservative
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But I can tell you that there are a number of Reformed denominations that exclusively sing acapella
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But they are typically also exclusive psalm singers who do not sing out of a hymnal during a worship service
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They might, during a time of fellowship, an informal gathering of some kind, sing hymns
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But during their worship services, they exclusively sing psalms And that would be the
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Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America denomination, also known as the Covenanters You have another
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Reformed Presbyterian denomination that is connected with them that is a global denomination
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And you have some other Reformed groups that believe in exclusive psalmody and yet also believe in exclusive acapella singing
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There's also a Reformed Baptist Church in Rochester, New York that is pastored by John Price Who believes in exclusive acapella singing, and he is a hymn singer as well as a psalm singer
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He does not have an exclusive psalm singing congregation And John Price has written a really fascinating book with compelling argumentation called
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Old Light on New Worship That's Old Light on New Worship, and it's a defensive, exclusive acapella singing in Christian worship
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And he is not a Primitive Baptist, he is a Reformed Baptist, a Calvinist but not a
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Primitive Baptist So, and I'm sure I'm missing some others, but thank you
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Susan in Mesopequa Park, Long Island And you are getting a free copy of the book by our guest today,
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Dr. Joshua Guthman And we need your full mailing address to get that out to you
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And thank you for contributing your question to the program We also have
44:59
CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York who says that I know that Orthodox Jewish synagogues are exclusively acapella in their worship
45:07
Was that a factor in the Primitive Baptist worship songs that drew you to investigate this group in further depth?
45:15
Dr. Guthman? Well, the short answer is no, because I'm not an
45:20
Orthodox Jew But I did say earlier, and it's true, that in the music
45:28
It reminded me of certain sort of twisting cantorial lines I'd hear sung in synagogue
45:36
And so in the synagogues that I grew up in, they would have a song leader called a cantor
45:42
And there would be congregational singing too But the cantor would often take his turn at the front leading
45:53
And sometimes he would sing solo And it's very elaborate singing with lots of twists and turns and slides and ornaments
46:01
And often in minor keys And there's some kind of connection that I heard in some of the
46:10
Primitive Baptist singing To that kind of music that I'd heard growing up But that's an emotional connection
46:18
You know, I don't think that's personal to me I think we'd be really stretching things to find a kind of deep historical connection there
46:29
But the emotional pull, at least for me, was undeniable Yeah, you know, going back to Pastor John Price's book that I mentioned
46:42
Old Light on New Worship One of the strongest elements of argumentation in his book
46:50
Is regarding history And in his book he actually traces a cappella worship in Christianity All the way back to the synagogue, the
47:02
Jewish synagogue of the first century After the destruction of the temple in AD 70 When the
47:08
Jews stopped using musical instruments Because they were tied in with the sacrificial system
47:16
And Pastor John Price really opened my eyes about some startling historical facts
47:25
According to his research The very first Presbyterian church in the United States that used an organ
47:32
Was not until the 19th century And I was shocked by that And historically all of the
47:40
Protestant groups were in harmony And using exclusive a cappella music Except for the
47:46
Lutherans The Lutherans agreed with the Catholics Which actually the Catholics originally didn't use musical instruments either
47:53
That's why you get the Gregorian chant But later in history they used the instruments
48:00
And the Lutheran church apparently never forbid using them But I just thought that was a fascinating bit of church history
48:08
And by the way C .J. you're also getting a free copy of the book
48:15
Strangers Below by our guest Dr. Joshua Guthman And if you could before I go on to any more of the questions from our listeners
48:23
How did you come up with that title Strangers Below? Oh man well
48:28
I It comes from a hymn It comes from a hymn that doesn't really have a title
48:35
But the opening lines You sort of just cheat
48:41
I guess And you just take the opening lines of the hymn And give the hymn a name
48:47
And so this hymn I am a stranger here below And what
48:54
I am is hard to know And that couplet seemed to just sum up So much of what
49:03
I was reading When I was studying Permanent Baptist Their letters and their diaries
49:10
And their other writings in the 19th century That they felt in some ways
49:18
Alien to the world They were always struggling And they would sense
49:24
God's grace And then they would feel that it might have been Removed from them or that they were fooled at first They had fooled themselves
49:38
But there's a constant kind of questioning A constant internal watching
49:44
That I found in the historical records And so that line, those two lines
49:51
Just seemed to sum them up for me And that's where I got the title of the book
49:58
And we do have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania Who writes
50:04
From my own investigation of the Permittive Baptists They appear to be a very tiny sect Isolated primarily in very rural areas in the deep south
50:12
With some exceptions Does your guest know if there is a resurgence of growth among them
50:18
Or are they dwindling in number to the point of near extinction? I know of no resurgence whatsoever
50:26
They're small They were always numerically small
50:35
But even in parts of the early 19th century In the early 19th century In some parts of the south
50:42
In pockets of North Carolina and Georgia and Florida and Kentucky In regions of those states
50:49
They held their own And numerically they were fine And in some places quite strong And you can read
51:00
Testimony from missionary Baptists, for instance Early mid -19th century missionary Baptist testimony
51:06
Where they are panicked That Permittive Baptists essentially hold sway
51:13
In, let's say, Tennessee And that the cause of missions Is going down the drain
51:19
They're very worried But ultimately, of course, we know the story And Missionary Baptists and their allies
51:30
And other evangelical denominations You know, carry the day And the Permittive Baptist numbers
51:35
At last I checked Oh, maybe around 70 ,000 Permittive Baptists in the
51:42
U .S. And I don't know You know, I'm a historian I don't know what the future holds I certainly hope they don't die out
51:51
That would seem tragic to me But they are small
51:57
I wouldn't say they're isolated, though You know, you Permittive Baptists They don't live
52:06
They're just parts of communities Like anybody else And so you'll find them wherever And they might be your mechanic
52:17
They could be your attorney Anything like that So I wouldn't say they're isolated
52:22
But they definitely are small And the progressive Permittive Baptists Eventually began incorporating musical instruments
52:30
In their worship services Absolutely And there's even a very
52:38
Tiny Subgroup of Permittive Baptists Called Permittive Baptist Universalists Who believe in universal salvation
52:47
That's totally extraordinary And there are, of course
52:52
We haven't even spoke about Black Permittive Baptists And the different The different kind of theological trajectories
52:59
That the Black Permittive Baptist church And churches took after the Civil War Tell us about that So what happens
53:08
Is, you know, white and black Permittive Baptists Worshipped in the same churches Before the war
53:14
Because Black Permittive Baptists were slaves So they were held captive After the war
53:23
Black Permittive Baptists Like black Christians Eventually go their own way
53:29
They found their own churches And the same thing happens With Permittive Baptists And part of the book
53:38
I look closely at A group of Black Permittive Baptists In Alabama and Florida Who eventually formed
53:50
The National Permittive Baptist Convention Which now is They count themselves, oh maybe
53:57
The numbers for them are hard to pin down But anywhere from really 600 ,000 to 2 million
54:03
So quite large And In the last part of the 19th century
54:10
And early 20th century They're pretty theologically conservative Even though they're innovating
54:16
On the kind of structural or organizational level They're having conventions and things like that But as the 20th century wears on They become
54:29
They look sort of, I would say More and more like their fellow Baptists That's how I would put it
54:34
You know, something that you said Just struck me as being very ironic How the Civil War brought about Segregation In a previously integrated church
54:44
When it comes to the Permittive Baptists Yeah, it's It's always sort of It's strange, you know
54:52
But the thing to keep in mind, of course Is that You know, those integrated churches
54:59
Were, you know They were strangely integrated Because the Black worshippers were there Because they were compelled to be there
55:07
And they were You know, they were catechized by white ministers Who would tell them things
55:13
That, you know It was good that they were slaves You know And so when they had a chance, of course
55:19
To be free from that They, I think, quite You know, quite understandably Just said, you know
55:24
Enough I don't want to worship with these people Who had enslaved me But because So, but that takes
55:32
That process of separation Doesn't happen immediately And it's very fascinating They're white and Black Primitive Baptists But also white
55:42
You know, that are worshipping With each other in churches For ten Fifteen Twenty Thirty years
55:47
It's a slow separation And You know
55:54
I think, like There's room in there To think about To imagine That there could be
56:01
Not only Serious Deep, painful Scarring Okay But that there might have been
56:09
Also moments Of deep fellowship There, too Between Black and white Primitive Baptists So I just don't think
56:16
Keep in mind And Harrison You are also Receiving A free copy
56:22
Of the book That we are discussing By Dr. Joshua Guthman Strangers Below So please make sure
56:30
You get us Your full mailing address So we can have that Shipped out to you And that's
56:36
Strangers Below Primitive Baptists In American culture We have Pastor Jason Wallace I usually don't give out
56:42
Our listeners Full names But since this is a pastor Pastor Jason Wallace I'm sure isn't going to mind
56:49
That I Give his full name And he is the pastor Of Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Church In Magna Utah And He says
57:01
Both sides of my family Were historically Primitive Baptists What does Dr.
57:07
Guthman Think Of shape Note singing For encouraging More congregational
57:14
Participation Oh man Well I I think the record
57:19
Is really clear on this That shape note singing Absolutely Encourages Participation And that's
57:27
That's why Those shape Notes came into being Because it became So simple
57:32
For people to read To read notes And to participate And To the point where now
57:39
Right you have So many people Sort of participate In In shape note singing
57:45
Or sacred harp singing Almost as a Pastime Irrespective of Their religious commitments
57:53
But Historically speaking Shape note singing Was just a way
57:58
To Teach Harmonies To the great Mass Of Christians Who couldn't read
58:07
Musical notation And it worked It worked amazingly well The primitives
58:14
Resisted That kind of That kind of movement For a long time
58:21
But Shape notes Slowly But steadily Made their way into Primitive Baptist singing
58:29
And you can find You can find It's Plenty Plenty of primitive Baptist churches
58:34
Who use shape note singing now Well the thing that's interesting Is When we had a questioner
58:40
Earlier I believe it was Susan in Massapequa Park Who was asking
58:45
Massapequa Park, New York Who was asking about Different denominations Using acapella singing
58:52
I have heard A lot of different Acapella singing Amongst Christian Denominations But there is something
58:58
Very unusual to me About primitive Baptists Style of it It seems to be
59:04
Very unique Am I right on that? Well Both There's a couple things
59:10
I'd say There's the older style Which we heard You play to This lined out style
59:18
And there's more to say About that And then there's And then there's The Cades Cove style too
59:24
Yeah There's They often Often They're They use pentatonic scales
59:31
And There's a way In which The pentatonic
59:38
Scales Don't quite I don't know how I'd put this They don't
59:44
As easily Lend themselves To Conflict and resolution The way that Minor and major Or a way that Diatonic scales do
59:54
So like Seven note ones And what musicologists
01:00:00
Will say Is that In In the pentatonic scale
01:00:05
There's less Of the There's just There's a kind of Inborn ambiguity In the sound
01:00:12
And That's something that you might be hearing It's something that I hear And that Might account for At least some of the difference
01:00:21
That we hear That we feel When we listen to Different types of Primitive Baptist singing We're going to Our next station break right now
01:00:29
If you'd like to join us on the air With a question of your own Our email address is ChrisArnzen At gmail dot com
01:00:35
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01:00:41
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01:00:47
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01:00:53
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01:02:02
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01:02:09
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LindbrookBaptist .org. That's LindbrookBaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen.
01:06:30
If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go is
01:06:36
Dr. Joshua Guthman, Associate Professor of History at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, and the author of the book we're discussing,
01:06:43
Strangers Below, Primitive Baptist and American Culture. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is
01:06:50
ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the
01:07:00
USA. And our theme today is how a Jewish history professor from L .A. was captivated by the acapella worship of Primitive Baptist.
01:07:08
And I am going to play another song and this song is an interesting song because, according to our guest,
01:07:18
Dr. Guthman, it has some kind of Primitive Baptist influence or roots. But this is, wouldn't, this would not be categorized as a hymn or a worship song.
01:07:29
I think this would be more of a folk song, perhaps, where we have the
01:07:38
Ralph Stanley version of it that was made very popular in the movie
01:07:45
O Brother, Where Art Thou? And it is really, although it's not a worship song, because the person singing is singing to the angel of death because he is, he realizes he's dying and he is not ready for heaven.
01:08:03
He knows he will go to hell and he's in a panic about it. He's terrified and rather than singing to God for rescue, he's singing to the angel of death to just back off for a while and give him a little bit more time.
01:08:18
But I'm going to play that for you and I'm sure many of you will remember this from the movie
01:08:24
O Brother, Where Art Thou? But this is Ralph Stanley's version of O Death.
01:08:32
O death O death
01:08:40
Won't you spare me over till another year Well what is this that I can't see
01:08:50
With ice cold hands taking hold of me Well I am death
01:08:57
None can excel I'll open the door to heaven or hell
01:09:03
O death Someone would pray Could you wait to call me another day
01:09:11
The children prayed The preacher preached Time and mercy is out of your reach
01:09:20
I'll fix your feet Till you can't walk I'll lock your jaws
01:09:26
Till you can't talk I'll close your eyes
01:09:31
So you can't see This very hour Come and go with me
01:09:37
Death I come To take the soul Leave the body
01:09:44
And leave it cold To drop the flesh Off of the frame
01:09:51
The earth and worm Both have a claim O death
01:10:00
O death Won't you spare me over till another year
01:10:11
My mother came to my bed Placed a cold towel upon my head
01:10:20
My head is warm My feet are cold Death is a -moving upon my soul
01:10:30
O death How you're treating me You've closed my eyes
01:10:36
So I can't see Well you're hurting my body You make me cold
01:10:43
You've run my life Right out of my soul O death
01:10:51
Please consider my age Please don't take me at this stage
01:10:57
My wealth is all At your command If you will move your icy hands
01:11:05
O the young The rich or poor Only like me you know
01:11:13
No wealth, no land No silver, no gold Nothing satisfies me but your soul
01:11:24
O death O death
01:11:29
Won't you spare me over till another year Won't you spare me over till another year
01:11:39
Won't you spare me over till another year And in fact,
01:11:48
Ralph Stanley sang that at the Grammy Awards not long ago, didn't he,
01:11:54
Dr. Guthman? Yeah, in 2000, it was 2001. What an amazing, what an amazing turn of events.
01:12:03
I remember hearing that song on country music radio back in the day, and I it scrambled my mind.
01:12:16
It did not compute. You know, it didn't compute in the most amazing and lovely way.
01:12:25
And it got me, it just got me thinking why were people so fascinated with Ralph Stanley singing after that movie, and of course it was the soundtrack that did
01:12:36
Gangbuster sales, not the movie itself. And Stanley and that song were so much a part of it.
01:12:44
And it got me thinking, why? Why again? And what is it about that singing that seemed to appeal to people?
01:12:51
And unfortunately in the movie, it's a Ku Klux Klan's Grand Dragon singing the song.
01:12:57
It's so frustrating, I know. It is so frustrating. Because, you know,
01:13:05
Ralph Stanley is not a Klan member at all, and, you know, the movie plays a bunch of things for laughs, and yeah.
01:13:14
But I was, as such a big Ralph Stanley fan at the time, and I'm a
01:13:22
Cone Brothers fan too, but I remember seeing, when I watched the movie, I thought, oh no, why do you have to put him behind a
01:13:27
Klan man? I mean, it's right crisp. The thing is, though, that the vast, vast majority of people who heard that song heard it without images.
01:13:39
They didn't hear it with, they just heard the song, they didn't see the movie. Right, and it's a very odd choice too, because you wouldn't expect the
01:13:49
Klansmen during a cross -burning ceremony to be singing that anyway. No, all they want, all they,
01:13:56
I think what it was, it's the sound of his voice, it's just haunting. And people say it over and over again, it's haunting.
01:14:03
And I just wanted to know, well, yeah, fine, it is haunting. Well, let's try to figure out something a little bit, to say something a little bit more than just haunting.
01:14:13
Where does it come from? And it turns out that he grew up in primitive Baptist churches, and the sound of his voice right there is, that is a primitive
01:14:21
Baptist sound. Now, do you know the origins of the song itself?
01:14:27
Because I've heard other versions of it that are more explicitly Christian, where the name of Jesus Christ is brought up and so on.
01:14:36
Oh, so I've heard the song, I've heard a bunch of versions just in black and white tradition.
01:14:43
I don't know, I do not know the origins of it. You know, I'd like to, if it's written by somebody or something like that, you know,
01:14:54
I just, it's one of those things that songs have been passed back and forth in white and black American traditions, the way that so many things are.
01:15:01
And it's been sung in lots of different ways, in ways that don't sound exactly like what we just heard.
01:15:10
That's a very specific rendition. But I do not know, you know, the date of origin, for instance.
01:15:19
We have Aaron in Indianapolis, Indiana, who asks,
01:15:24
I'm not a student of Hebrew music, other than use of beautiful minor intervals, but are there echoes of Jewish types of singing in the
01:15:33
Primitive Baptist music? So, you know, this is, so here's something to say about this.
01:15:43
There's, this again is, this is about me and my, I think, emotional connection. It's hard for,
01:15:48
I don't know, in fact, I don't know enough about Jewish liturgical worship music to say much outside of my own experience.
01:15:58
But there is this, on the most sacred day of the
01:16:03
Jewish calendar, it's called Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And there is a portion of the service where the cantor, the song leader, sings something, a song called, it's a prayer called
01:16:18
Hineni. It means, I am here, or here I am. These are the words that Abraham speaks to God when he binds
01:16:30
Isaac to the altar. They are, you know, desperate and naked and terrible words, and they're frank.
01:16:42
And that notion or that experience, you know, being in synagogue when you're, the cantor singing that alone, it's a plea to God.
01:16:53
And it's a plea for recognition and a plea for forgiveness. And it's sung in that minor key, twisting way.
01:17:05
And for me, I hear echoes of that, the sound in, let's say, the twisting lines of somebody like Ralph Stanley.
01:17:17
But there's also that echo, there's a kind of existential and theological echo there too, right?
01:17:25
A man standing before God, asking questions, or asking for mercy, or saying, here
01:17:33
I am, what do you make of me? And that, so that is something that comes right out of my own
01:17:40
Jewish tradition, but that is there in a different way, of course, but also a recognizable way in this primitive
01:17:49
Baptist tradition, in a Calvinistic tradition, in a Reformed tradition. So there are these lines of connection.
01:17:56
I would just say that I'm always hesitant to draw them to say that they're ironclad.
01:18:03
For me, it's more imaginative or emotional. It doesn't mean they're less real, but they might be a little bit more personal than they are historical.
01:18:17
Thank you, Aaron. In Indianapolis, Indiana, keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron where you live.
01:18:22
And we have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who says,
01:18:28
Are hymns like the ones you've played given out spontaneously in worship, or are they selected beforehand?
01:18:38
Also, some of the primitive Baptist music you have played reminds me of the way Gaelic Scots sing metrical hymns.
01:18:45
Is there a known link between the two? Okay, let's start with the last one.
01:18:50
Yeah, there is some kind of a link. In the migration of Scots -Irish into the
01:19:04
American backcountry, those kinds of singing traditions came with them.
01:19:11
Many of those people, their ancestors would become primitive Baptists, and they bring those singing traditions into primitive
01:19:19
Baptist worship. And so, there's a connection there. Yeah, there's a lot of similarity between bluegrass music and Scotch and Irish music.
01:19:30
And there's a lot of cultural connections because a lot of the immigrants from Scotland and Northern Ireland, especially the
01:19:39
Ulster Scots, did immigrate to the southern part of the
01:19:45
United States. Absolutely. And there's some singing that always comes to mind.
01:19:52
There's recordings that I've heard of Gaelic psalm singing on some islands off the coast of Scotland or southern
01:20:03
Hebrides. And their way of singing is the
01:20:10
Ralph Stanley way. And it's what musicologists call the old way of singing, that way where there's a lot of ornamentation and what
01:20:20
I keep calling twisting or grace notes, and sometimes solo, but oftentimes congregational.
01:20:28
It's the type of singing that many trained choir masters will complain about as grumbling and squeaking, but it's the kind of singing that is beautiful and defiant in its own way.
01:20:42
And what was the first part of that question? I can't remember. Oh, are the hymns given out spontaneously?
01:20:49
Yes. The answer is yes. So it's not to say that people don't have favorites and then they call for their favorites.
01:20:56
That happens. But yes, someone will call for a song, or someone will start singing a song, and other people will join in.
01:21:09
And Murray from Kinrow, Scotland, also says, So far as I know, the
01:21:17
New Testament Greek word for psalm, psalmos, carries with it the idea of striking with the fingers as on a musical instrument.
01:21:26
I'm wondering what Dr. Guthman's thoughts are on that, please. And he also says,
01:21:32
I was previously with an exclusive psalmity congregation of the Free Church of Scotland who have now changed their position.
01:21:42
The singing was led by a precentor. I also met with a gospel standard
01:21:48
Baptist congregation who sung unaccompanied. I gather they still do.
01:21:53
They use the Gadsby's hymn book. But the first part of his question about the actual word psalm,
01:22:00
I've heard it actually mean the song sung to a harp, but if you could comment on that.
01:22:07
Well, I don't, you know, this is, this is, I've heard different, you know, translations. This is sort of, this is like beyond my expertise in terms of the, what the
01:22:20
Greek means. Absolutely, those, it seems to me that, you know, there's plenty of evidence that in ancient
01:22:32
Jewish worship, people were using, you know, those songs were, the psalms were sung.
01:22:39
Somebody's playing a lute or a lyre. They played on something called a kinor, like a, sort of like a violin.
01:22:50
There's drumming was involved, things like that. I guess for me, what always interests me as the, as a historian is just figuring out what people do in their own time and space.
01:23:08
So if people calling themselves primitive Baptists are singing a cappella in 1835,
01:23:18
I just want to know how that works for them and what that means to them at that moment in time.
01:23:25
I'm not interested so much in figuring out whether they're right or wrong, really, or what they, you know, if they've got the meaning, if they've got the meaning of psalm correct.
01:23:39
I just want to know why do you sing like that? What does that mean to you? And so that's, my question will always kind of, for better and for worse, because there are certain blindnesses in this way of thinking, but like that, you know, go back to that, that kind of, what does it mean to the person, to the religious person in his or her moment?
01:24:02
Well, thank you, Murray, and Ken Ross Scotland. Please keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron in the
01:24:08
UK and keep listening and participating with your questions. Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas asked several questions, but we already covered most of what she asked, but she does ask something that I didn't ask you because I don't know anything about music at all other than appreciating listening to it.
01:24:29
I'm not a musician nor a composer or anything like that, but she asked, what percentage of the hymns of the
01:24:40
Primitive Baptist are in a minor key or in a major key? Oh, boy.
01:24:46
I don't know. I would say, here's what I would say. I don't know the numbers. Let me guess. Let me guess. I will say, in my experience, it's about even, but I do know that in some of the work of early, early folklore, so we're talking early 20th century people, you know, very, very, people just head out into the hills to collect songs.
01:25:21
They would say that minor keys would be the sort of more prevalent sound that they heard.
01:25:30
In my own personal experience, it's about, I'd say it's half and half, maybe. Maybe I would say something like that, but I don't know the numbers, and this is what
01:25:39
I would say to the listener. There's an amazing book written just about Primitive Baptist hymnody, and it's called
01:25:49
The Sound of the Dove by Beverly Bush Patterson, and if anybody knows, it's
01:25:56
Beverly Patterson, and I would guess her book has something to say about numbers and ratios. She's an amazing writer and amazing scholar, and it's a great book.
01:26:08
Well, and Linda has one more question that you didn't cover. She says, what spiritual father brought them to this point?
01:26:20
I'm assuming she's talking about a figure from history that perhaps was a part of the founding of the
01:26:26
Primitive Baptists. She says, as my McAllen pastor says, dance with those who brung you.
01:26:35
So, if you could answer that to the best of your ability, if you even know. Oh, no. Okay, well,
01:26:41
I'm not totally, I'm not, I don't know what I would say to that. I'm not really sure what Linda means by spiritual father.
01:26:47
Let me, I could... I think she just means like a founder of the group, or perhaps somebody that moved them into acapella worship or what have you.
01:26:54
Oh, that is, but I think that this is, that's something that's, the acapella practice is just sort of organic and congregational, and there is no one person early on that you could have sort of ascribed.
01:27:08
Yeah, in fact, from what I've already, from what I've already said earlier in the program, from my reading of John Price's book,
01:27:18
Old Light on New Worship, it was the, those using instruments that were the innovators, because the majority of Protestantism was acapella until the 19th century.
01:27:27
Absolutely. I think I would just say that what you find at the roots of this old way of singing, and then also at the roots of the
01:27:37
Primitive Baptist movement is a sense, yes, of a kind of questioning loneliness and uncertainty over one's own fate.
01:27:44
Am I saved or am I damned? What has God decided? But you also hear defiance, and that's the defiance in the early
01:27:55
Primitive Baptist movement of saying, you know, we don't, no more money -raising in our churches, or a defiance of certain revivalistic tactics that Primitives sensed were manipulative.
01:28:09
And they stood against what so many of their brothers and sisters were going towards.
01:28:19
And then in the singing, this way of singing is something that was, that song masters tried to stamp out by the early 18th century in ways they were trying to teach their congregation to sing by note, to sing by part, to sing in harmony, and they were constantly complaining that the people in the pews were grumbling and squeaking and seeming to mix up their words and were reading and also singing at the same time.
01:28:53
It was all to them a confused noise, all this complaining. People were singing in a whining way, it was untunable, so on and so forth.
01:29:03
And what was happening was Protestants, just regular old people in the pews, were saying, no, no, we're going to sing this way.
01:29:13
This is our way of singing. And in a lot of ways, what you hear in the sounds of Primitive Baptist singing, and this is the sound of, it's the sound of a dissenting
01:29:25
Protestant, and it's the sound that goes beyond just whatever the texts are in the hymn.
01:29:32
But the sound would be something, the meaning is something like, I am a dissenter. I am poor.
01:29:39
I am of the people. I oppose high -born ways, but I respect my elders.
01:29:45
I respect the past. I am here, present.
01:29:51
I am receptive to the indwelling Spirit of God. And my singing is an emblem of all of this.
01:30:01
I cannot be moved. And that is, that's just my summation, you know, of what we're kind of hearing when somebody unfurls these notes.
01:30:13
Well, we have to go to our final break now, and we do have a few more listeners still waiting to have their questions asked and answered, including one from Slovenia, who has a couple of questions for you,
01:30:24
Dr. Guthman. And if you'd like to join them with questions of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.
01:30:32
This is your final opportunity. We're going to have about 25 minutes left when we return from the break. So if you intend to send in a question, please do so now at chrisarnson at gmail dot com.
01:30:43
C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com.
01:30:48
Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the
01:30:54
USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. Joshua Guthman and our discussion on the
01:31:02
Primitive Baptists and their music. So please don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages.
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01:36:30
Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours has been
01:36:37
Dr. Joshua Guthman, Associate Professor of History at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. We have been discussing his book,
01:36:44
Strangers Below, Primitive Baptists in American Culture, and our theme has been how a
01:36:50
Jewish history professor from L .A. was captivated by the acapella worship of primitive Baptists.
01:36:55
If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail dot com. chrisarnzen at gmail dot com.
01:37:02
Before I go on to some of our listener questions, I want to remind you that tomorrow, that's
01:37:07
Saturday, the 26th of November, it is the debut broadcast of a visit to the pastor's study hosted by my dear friend for nearly 30 years,
01:37:23
Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, Long Island, New York.
01:37:29
And Pastor Bill is going to, starting tomorrow, he's going to be hosting this weekly live call -in show a visit to the pastor's study, as I mentioned earlier.
01:37:41
And you can call into that program with your own questions about nearly anything involving the
01:37:47
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01:37:59
But whatever the issues are, you can listen live -streaming anywhere on the planet Earth at WLIE540AM .com
01:38:07
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01:38:15
WLIE540AM .com is the website. If you live in the New York Tri -State area, you can hear the program live on the radio dial at 540
01:38:26
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01:38:37
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01:38:48
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01:38:53
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01:39:01
Please let Pastor Bill know that you heard about his program on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
01:39:08
I would appreciate that very much because he's not only a friend, but he's a client of mine. I would like him to know that I am spreading the word about his program.
01:39:19
We have Joe in Slovenia, which is the native land of our new
01:39:24
First Lady, Melania Trump. Joe says, I love the music you're playing.
01:39:31
It sounds to me that it may have some influences from the Negro spiritual tradition and style.
01:39:38
Please ask Dr. Guthman if there are any connections between the two.
01:39:43
Thanks for bringing us such a wide range of issues to wrestle with. Grace and peace.
01:39:48
That's a very interesting question, Dr. Guthman, because out of all the white
01:39:55
Southern music, this music does sound most like it has a connection with Negro spirituals.
01:40:01
For instance, as you know, the vast majority of country Western music does not sound anything like that.
01:40:10
There's very little black influence in country Western music or even country gospel music.
01:40:17
You do have Charlie Pryde and Darius Rucker who have broken the mold on that.
01:40:22
The bluegrass music and this primitive
01:40:27
Baptist music seems to have much more of an affinity with Negro spirituals. To me, anyway, if you could comment.
01:40:34
I think Joe is absolutely right. I'm really, really happy about this question because it's important to note the black influence on this type of singing because what's easy to trace and it's correct to trace is the stuff that we've been talking about, which is the singing sound tradition that goes back into dissenting
01:40:58
Protestant churches in England or that you can trace to Scotland. That's all there, and that's correct.
01:41:10
But there's always something else going on with American Christianity, and you can't talk about American Christianity, and you can't talk about primitive
01:41:18
Baptists and primitive singing without wrestling with its African American component. So I think
01:41:24
Joe's on to something. It's harder to... What you hear is...
01:41:30
There's a style of singing in black churches called surge singing or a kind of moaning singing, and it's very, very similar to some of this sort of congregational, lined -out hymnody that you hear in old -way primitive
01:41:49
Baptist -style singing. There are deep, deep affinities, even though if you listen to them side -by -side, you'd hear, let's say, a lot more nasality in white primitive
01:42:02
Baptist churches and a lot more of a kind of... Oh, you just hear much more of a kind of...
01:42:11
I don't know how I'd put it. That kind of black congregational... There's a little bit more of a swing to it, even though it's not swinging and it's not syncopated.
01:42:25
But there are serious, serious connections, and there's a song on my website.
01:42:33
You can go to strangersbelow .com or strangersbelow .net, and there's a section on music and music from the book, and one of the last songs, perhaps the last song on there, is a song from a black primitive
01:42:47
Baptist church in Alabama. And if you listen to that music, you're going to hear connections to what we've heard before, but you also hear something that is straight out of the black church, straight out of the black church.
01:43:01
Yes, and by the way, just as a caveat to something I said earlier about country -western music, there may be some that would argue that in its root, there is a lot of black influence in what later became country -western music.
01:43:15
I'm just talking about to my 20th century ears, I don't hear... No, you're right,
01:43:20
Chris. You're right. Yeah, so it seems like a completely different sound than what you're commonly hearing from black artists throughout the centuries.
01:43:32
Yeah. But Joe from Slovenia has one more question. My wife and I served as missionaries for almost six years in Russian Central Siberia.
01:43:44
The music of these primitive Baptists that you're playing sounds very similar to the singing we did with the
01:43:51
Russian Baptists. Please ask Dr. Guthman if he knows of any connections between Russian Baptists and primitive
01:43:57
Baptists in the United States of America. No, none at all. I don't know anything, and I want to know more.
01:44:03
Can Joe write to me and tell me? I am in deadly in earnest. Well, I will tell Joe to...
01:44:09
What is your email address? Just hit me up at... The best way to go is just to go to my website.
01:44:17
So go to strangersbelow .net and go to the About page and email me there.
01:44:22
Or you can simply Google me and you will find my Berea College homepage and there'll be an email link there.
01:44:31
In fact, I could even, as well, I can off the air or later on, I could email you
01:44:36
Joe's question. That's great. That would be great, too.
01:44:41
I'm happy to give my email address out on the air. It's just you never know. These things kind of get lost in translation.
01:44:51
So it's my last name, Guthman, G -U -T -H -M -A -N,
01:44:58
J. So then my first initial, guthmanj at berea .edu.
01:45:05
Berea is spelled B -E -R -E -A. Well, there you go,
01:45:10
Joe in Slovenia. Shoot an email to Dr. Guthman because he wants to hear more from you about the
01:45:18
Russian Baptists that you have experienced. Thank you so much for... No more. Thank you so much for contributing to today's program.
01:45:26
I'm going to play at least one more song and then we'll go back to some more questions. But as I've been saying,
01:45:33
I love the singing of the Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church.
01:45:40
And as I keep repeating, I am not giving my theological endorsement to the
01:45:46
Primitive Baptists and I'm not also disparaging them as a whole because they are not a monolith. I have serious objections to some of the things that would be common among many of them, such as hyper -Calvinistic tendencies, rejecting the use of means to bring the lost to salvation, such as evangelism and preaching and teaching and passing out of tracts and on and on.
01:46:14
But I cannot help but admit that I love much of their music, which is one of the reasons why we're conducting this interview today is that I have a new friend here who is not even a
01:46:27
Christian, who is a Jewish individual who also shares this love of this music and I find it very fascinating that he has written a book about it and that's why
01:46:37
I invited him on this program. I have found this interview quite fascinating and it's obvious that many of you have as well in the listening audience.
01:46:45
But here is a song, another song from the Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church that I hope that you will enjoy.
01:46:56
And the poor and the lost
01:47:01
Where did this landless
01:47:07
Home of the God Settle for a slave
01:47:16
So gently over it goes
01:47:27
Till my drooping sadness I may drown
01:47:37
And the leader to the older comes
01:47:47
And it changes someday for the worse
01:47:58
Till the poor and the lost I may drown
01:48:07
And the leader to the older comes
01:48:16
And it changes someday for the worse
01:48:36
So gently over it goes
01:48:47
Till my drooping sadness I may drown
01:48:56
And the leader to the older comes
01:49:06
And it changes someday for the worse
01:49:19
Well, that was a song that was very commonly heard to most of us in evangelical churches, the old rugged cross, so that's nothing unusual, but that was done primitive
01:49:31
Baptist style, as you heard. And one of the things that I wanted to know, out of curiosity, since, as you know,
01:49:40
Dr. Guthman, I am a strong, conservative, evangelical,
01:49:46
Calvinistic, Bible -believing Christian, I was wondering if any of these things that drew you into a study, a deeper study, of the primitive
01:49:56
Baptists and their music actually got you to more seriously consider and investigate the claims of Jesus Christ as being the fulfillment of old covenant or the prophecies of the
01:50:08
Hebrew Scriptures? I think the answer is no.
01:50:16
It's not, I don't know, it would be, how can
01:50:22
I put this? I always feel that by studying
01:50:29
Christians, learning about Christians, or really learning from Christians, I get closer to Christians, and that's deeply important to me.
01:50:43
And that's why I love opportunities like this radio program so much, it's so valuable to me.
01:50:49
But theologically, no, I can't go there. It's not my tradition.
01:51:00
And I say that with the utmost respect. It's just not my tradition.
01:51:06
Well, I respect and appreciate your response, because obviously, as you know, in this day and age of political correctness, people would think that even my asking that question would be some kind of a hateful kind of a thing, or a bigoted thing.
01:51:21
Oh, no, come on. A lot of people have got to get over it. I mean, why wouldn't you ask?
01:51:30
I mean, that's what you ought to ask. I don't, that's, I mean, yeah. You know, so, you know, it's just, it's just, there is ultimately an impasse there, but it's not, you know,
01:51:45
I don't know how to put it. One doesn't, my students ask me, you know, similar questions, and, you know, they'll wonder, you know, what's going on with you?
01:51:58
And I say, well, you know, you can't spend as much time studying something like this without having a kind of deep reverence for it.
01:52:11
That's undeniable. But I also have just a deep reverence for my own tradition, where I come from, and that just, you know, that's got me held real close, held fast.
01:52:27
So it's just, I can't leave it. Well, the thing that's kind of ironic is that 2 ,000 years ago, apart from the obviously clear teaching of the
01:52:41
Gospel of Jesus Christ, and of the belief that he is not only the
01:52:48
Messiah, but God in flesh, and so on, there was a lot of cultural commonality, because the original
01:52:55
Christians were, with very few exceptions, all Jewish. Yeah, of course, yep.
01:53:04
Well, there's a writer named Lorne Winner, who, you know, calls, it's just Christians and Jews are branches on the same olive tree.
01:53:13
And that's how I like to think of it. And going back to a commonality
01:53:19
I have with the primitive Baptists, in spite of my serious differences with them theologically,
01:53:25
I do believe that it is God, ultimately, that even opens someone's eyes to believe in Christ as being
01:53:34
Messiah, as trusting in his finished work on the cross. And so, ultimately, that is not in anyone's hands in an earthly sense.
01:53:45
Those are the things that are paramount to what is known as Calvinism or Reformed theology.
01:53:51
So, I just honestly will say that I am praying to that end, but I cannot manipulate anyone, or coerce, or use clever wording, or so on, to convince anyone of these truths.
01:54:09
This is something that, ultimately, someone has to be born from above. This is, as the scriptures themselves say, that we can, as humans, can only plant seeds and water them, and God gives the increase.
01:54:21
So, that's just in regard to what I would have in common with the primitive Baptists, is that the human beings are not the arbiters of anyone's faith.
01:54:32
They are not the ones that turn the light switch on. And before we go, since we only have four minutes left,
01:54:40
I really want you to leave our audience with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before the program's over.
01:54:47
Wait, say that last bit again. Sorry, Chris. I want you to summarize what you most want our listeners to leave the program with, and what you most want etched in their hearts and minds.
01:54:58
Oh, well, first, I just want to say how grateful I am, again, to the guests on Iron Chair Burns Iron.
01:55:04
These types of conversations are so valuable to me. I'm learning all the way through, even though I'm ostensibly the expert here, but I'm learning by being asked all these questions and getting the chance to think again about some things that I've thought a lot about, and then also getting a chance to sort of think again about some stuff that I haven't thought about, or even things
01:55:27
I don't know anything about, like those Russian Baptists. For me, it's important that listeners and readers come away with a new or deeper understanding of who primitive
01:55:43
Baptists are and were and their place in American religious history, and that what you find by listening to their music and listening to their words is just a more complex picture of American Christianity, an
01:56:05
American Christianity that's more fragmented than some people would have you believe, that's more diverse than some people would have you believe.
01:56:14
And they're also representatives of a Calvinistic tradition, and you're familiar with this, of course, right?
01:56:21
That sometimes the people outside of that tradition seem to think have faded away, or that vanished with the
01:56:32
Puritans, but this is not true. And that Calvinistic way of being in the world is deeply important, and the
01:56:48
Primitives are one of the groups of people that have carried that along. That's what
01:56:54
I'd like people to know. And by the way, I found it fascinating when I was investigating
01:56:59
Berea College that one of the founding members or most influential people from history that led to the founding of the college was
01:57:10
Cassius Clay, who was an abolitionist, and now
01:57:15
I know where, who most of our listeners would know as Muhammad Ali, who passed away about six months ago.
01:57:22
Now I know where she most likely got that name, because Cassius Clay, later
01:57:28
Muhammad Ali, was born and raised in Kentucky. That's right, that's right.
01:57:34
This college has got, yeah, interesting connections. Yeah, and a fascinating story.
01:57:40
Yes. Well, I want to remind our listeners that you can learn more about the book
01:57:46
Strangers Below, Primitive Baptist and American Culture, and more about our guest today,
01:57:52
Dr. Joshua Guthman, by going to his website, joshuaguthman .com. That's joshuaguthman,
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G -U -T -H -M -A -N .com, and you can learn more about him and the book
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Strangers Below. In fact, I also want to thank the University of North Carolina Press for giving us those free copies that we shared with listeners who wrote questions.
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That's uncpress .unc .edu, UNC for University of North Carolina Press, uncpress .unc
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.edu. Thank you so much for providing those copies, and I want all of you to have a wonderful weekend.
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I hope you are of a blessed weekend and a safe weekend and a precious Lord's Day. And don't forget to tune in to a visit to the pastor's study tomorrow on wlie540am .com
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with Pastor Bill Shishko from 12 noon to 1 .30 p .m. Eastern Time. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater
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Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions next week for our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.