Rural North Africans revered but deferred the strict high religion.

Evidence

Concerning the rival claims of high and low religion, the characteristic attitude of the North African countryside was very much the same as that expressed by the pre-Islamic North African, Saint Augustine, in his famous prayer: O Lord, make me pure, but not yet. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2016

Categorization

• CANDY: Augustine’s prayer being invoked for North African religious deferral is a light, quotable fact.
• DEFINE: Illustrates the structural gap between ideological recognition and practice that drives the high/low religious dynamic.