{"id":55368,"date":"1997-09-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1997-09-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/"},"modified":"1997-09-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1997-09-01T00:00:00","slug":"abridging-of-conscience","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Abridging of Conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#39;t suppose we have ever again gathered under one roof such an assembly of wise and noble people as created our Constitution and declared that all people are created and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. But they abridged their consciousness to the presence of half a million black people who claim the same rights.<\/p>\n\t\t<p>Huck Finn saw an accident down at the riverside, and a white lady asked him if anybody had gotten hurt down there. He says, &quot;No, Ma&#39;am; nobody got hurt. Just a couple niggers got killed.&quot; She said, &quot;Oh, that&#39;s good. A person could get hurt in an accident like that.&quot; Abridged her consciousness.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3492,3500,3525,3675,3798,4429,4599,4693,4761],"tax_ctp_topics":[378,386,389],"class_list":["post-55368","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-bigotry","tax_ctp_tags-black-history-month","tax_ctp_tags-brotherhood","tax_ctp_tags-consecration","tax_ctp_tags-discrimination","tax_ctp_tags-martin-luther-king-jr","tax_ctp_tags-partiality","tax_ctp_tags-prejudice","tax_ctp_tags-racism"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Abridging of Conscience - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Abridging of Conscience - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I don&#039;t suppose we have ever again gathered under one roof such an assembly of wise and noble people as created our Constitution and declared that all people are created and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. But they abridged their consciousness to the presence of half a million black people who claim Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/\",\"name\":\"The Abridging of Conscience - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"1997-09-01T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"1997-09-01T00:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Abridging of Conscience\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Abridging of Conscience - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/abridging-of-conscience\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Abridging of Conscience - CT Pastors","og_description":"I don&#39;t suppose we have ever again gathered under one roof such an assembly of wise and noble people as created our Constitution and declared that all people are created and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. 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