Why a Baptist reverend says ‘Come, Come, Ye Saints’ embodies ‘the struggle of the human family’

In a new video published by the Church’s newsroom, Elder Jack N. Gerard, a General Authority Seventy, sits down with Rev. Amos C. Brown of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco.

“We have not mastered that pronoun, ‘We,’” Rev. Brown tells Elder Gerard in the video. “We are family. We came from one Creator.” 

Elder Gerard asks Rev. Brown about his love for the Latter-day Saint hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints” to which Rev. Brown explained that he first heard the hymn 50 years ago during the Tabernacle Choir’s weekly broadcast. 

“That hymn embodies a statement of the struggle of the human family,” Rev. Brown says. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints went through struggle. Your congregation did not rest in the ruins of oppression. It did not just survive. It struggled to soar above the persecution that was inflicted by persons who didn’t like you because you were different. But Joseph Smith and the prophets kept saying, ‘Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear.’ That opening line really impacted me when I first heard it over 50 years ago, and I never forgot it.”

Watch the conversation here or in the player below. 

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Video Companion
Overcoming Prejudice: A Discussion with the Rev. Amos C. Brown

Lead Image: Intellectual Reserve, Inc. 
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