New Book Featuring Sermons of the Rev.
Vivian Relevant Today
Passages from sermons in a new book by the family of the late Rev. C.T. Vivian gives the perception that the late Civil Rights activist and pioneer, who preached nonviolence and equity for all, had a crystal ball or a bit of the famed astrologist Nostradamus within.
At a recent book signing and reading at New Copperfield Book Service in Macomb, daughters Denise Vivian Morse, who did much of the gathering and editing for the book, and her sister Jo Anna (JoJo) Walker talked about how their father was ahead of his time; the daunting process of going through years upon years of documents to find his sermons, and the arduous journey to get them published for theologians and others. The pair also were part of a celebration in their father's honor at the Western Illinois Museum Thursday evening.
The 15 sermons that made the cut to become 'Your Soul is Required: The Theology and Sermons of C.T. Vivian - which were written anywhere from the 1960s through the 1990s hold messages that ring true today and provide insight into the mind, the heart and the soul of the late minister, teacher, scholar, prophet and activist. Vivian passed away July 17, 2020, a few weeks shy of his 96th birthday. It was also when the country was in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the labor of love by Denise and his children took nearly four years to finish.
'Everything was shut down, and daddy had taken a reverse mortgage on the house, and we had six months to get it cleaned out and pay the government back its money,' Morse said with a laugh during Saturday's reading. 'The three of us just methodically went through everything. His house was like a museum. He had 50 or 60 years' worth of writings, posters, books, and he had boxes and file cabinets stacked up. We found the sermons mama had typed for him, and other handwritten notes, but we couldn’t find the audiotapes of his sermons when he was a guest speaker or pastor, we just couldn't find them.'
By sheer luck, the Rev. John Stoner showed up with a box ... and in that box were the missing audiotapes. The two pastors had always planned to write a book on sermons, but age and time got the best of them, Morse shared.
'But the one I really wanted, 'America's Joseph,' which was daddy's best sermon in my opinion, wasn't there. Over the years, other pastors would ask for it as well. It's powerful,' she said. 'We finally found it in the writings that mama had typed. It was the best version. The first time I heard this sermon when I was a teenager, I thought maybe the Bible really did have something.'
In this sermon, the Rev. Dr. Vivian shares the story of Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers. Instead of seeking vengeance, Joseph turned to good. His sermon about good conquering evil was written in the late 1960s/ early 1970s, Morse guessed. He didn't date his sermons, and they could often be found scribbled on napkins and scraps of paper.
The family found a company to digitize the cassette tapes of the Rev. Dr. Vivian's sermons, and a few others outside of the family stepped in during the process to help get those written and edited, but Denise said while they did a great job, they didn't get her daddy's cadence.
'It was really hard for those who didn't know him. We knew where the punctuation should be and how he spoke,' she noted. 'We had to do this ourselves because it was important that these were written in his voice.'
And in the midst of this, Denise was also looking for modern-day theologians across the U.S. who could analyze the selected 15 sermons and provide commentaries. She started doing her research, rounding up contact information and began reaching, again adding with a laugh, that she didn't know what she was doing.
'I just started sending emails and to my surprise, within a few minutes, I had my first response, with a note that they'd be happy to do it,' Morse added. 'And all of them who added to the book knew him.'
At the beginning of 2021, the Vivian house in Atlanta was sold and Emory University bought most of the Rev. Dr. Vivian's papers, and also agreed to hold his books and other items in storage, which the family can access at any time. It was also that Emory connection that led to a professional editor for the book of sermons, which was eventually published by Fortress Press, which also had published Vivian's book, 'Black Power and the American Myth' in 1970, and Octavia Vivian's book, 'The Story of Coretta Scott King' in 1970. Fortress published 'Your Soul is Required,' which happens to also be the title of one of the sermons within,' in December 2025.
'Denise gets all the credit. She did all the work,' JoJo is quick to point out. While Morse did do much of the work, she's also quick to say that all of the six Vivian children together own the rights to their dad, and that's why their names appear on this latest book.
And it is that sermon, 'Your Soul is Required,' that shows a man well before his time, and a sermon, a teaching, that could've been written today, Denise said. She read parts of it aloud at Saturday's event.
'The parable tells the story of a wealthy man who just keeps getting richer and richer. Instead of sharing his wealth and helping others, he kept building places to store his things. In King James, God calls him stupid man and tells him his soul is required,' she explained.
'This sermon was delivered by our daddy in 1994, but our nation today is a personification of this parable. What he shared in that sermon holds true,' Morse stated. 'We're an abundant country but there is not enough soul to feed the hungry. We're the richest nation but we don't have the soul to share that abundance. This sermon, like so many others, is relevant, in the right here, right now.'
For both sisters, this new book isn't intended just for theologians, it's also a way to continue to keep their father's legacy alive, while also, hopefully, teaching others the way to take righteous path and make a difference.
'Everything daddy said is relevant today,' the sisters concluded. 'He was a genius at making it right now. He was a prophet.'
'Your Soul is Required' is available at New Copperfield's Book Service in Macomb and on Amazon.
C.T. Vivian at Ebenezer Baptist Church Getty Images
