At 2015 National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama delivered a sermon from his bully pulpit that garnered ire of Christian Right.1 In retrospect, there were many moments from speech that could have caused concern. The president's conciliatory gestures toward Dalai Lama might have opened a diplomatic Pandora's box, for even slightest bow of acknowledgment could tax relations with Chinese government. Ultimately this hardly proved newsworthy, nor did Mr. Obama's description of Islamic State as a death cult. His denunciation of Islamicized violence in Paris, Pakistan, and Middle East was as expected as his recitation of words attributed to Prophet Muhammad, None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself2 At time, the golden rule was a party line feigned by Democrats and Republicans alike.Any contention from these statements paled next to this controversial presidential parable:So how do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities-the profound good, strength, tenacity, compassion and love that can flow from all our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religion for their own murderous ends? Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in name of Christ.3Much could be said about identity politics at play in Mr. Obama's statement- limits of his religious pluralism, his signification of 9/11, his social location of theodicy. But in this moment, I'd like to suggest that this event was proof positive that Americans are bound in a Christian nation.To be clear, United States of America is not made up solely of Christians, nor is it a theocracy. But America is a Christian nation. Those who protest with song of the separation of church and state forget that its refrain comes after a verse not about whether but how one may operate in other. Put differently, Americans would not argue about church-state relations were it not a central concern.In terms of anthropology of Scriptures, I contend that black people's relationship with Bible testifies to two aspects of Christian nation paradox.4 America is a strange new world in which some are bound in (i.e., enchained, castigated, conquered) just as it can be promised land where others are bound for (i.e., invigorated, cheered, conquerors). In theorizing about an African American Bible, members of Society of Biblical Literature might re-cognize category of Scriptures as indicative of stories not only that we read but that also read us back.5 Within their binding, astute begin to make sense of their worlds.The following reflective essay recounts some of lessons learned in studying tension between Bible and very constitution of African American identity. There we see ambivalence of this nation's Bible readers to matter of black life-namely, that its import is far from sacrosanct according to America's hermeneutical posturing.6In BeginningAt crossroads of genetic turn and post-civil rights era, inclusionminded Americans began to profess that we are all just part of one race, human race.7 The Christian Pop/Rock/Rap group called DC Talk (Decent Christian Talk) made statement into a creed.We're colored people, and we live in a tainted place.We're colored people, and they call us human race.We've got a history so full of mistakes.And we are colored people who depend on a Holy Grace.8The racial sentiment also reflects scientism of Zeitgeist. The Mitochondrial Eve discourse has given moderns sufficient license to remark that we are all African from a certain point of view. …