1
Why do we believe in the same God that our oppressors believed in?
First
of all this type of question comes from a person who still believes that
Afro-Americans or Black people are oppressed.
Why do some people still feel this way?
Perhaps it is the way some members of the Black community have been
treated and are still treated concerning things that should be a basic right of
human existence in areas like housing, employment and education. When it comes to religion the reasons vary to
the cause why Black people assimilated and embraced Christianity, but let us
look at this more logically. For
centuries in Africa and in other parts of the world when one group or tribe of
people conquered another group or tribe of people the conquered would be
subject to worship the God(s) of their conquerors. People back then worshipped
and prayed to all sorts of things, they prayed to Gods of wood and stone. They
participated in animal sacrifice to pay homage to their Gods of wood and stone.
When the Europeans arrived on the western coasts and southern tip of Africa,
they contracted with African Tribal leaders to capture enemy tribes and in
exchange for the African people captured
the African Man-hunting Tribes were given guns and munitions as well as
whiskey. So the African Man-hunting Tribes that did business with the Europeans
eventually turned on each other and the strongest militarily supported tribe
wiped out the weaker ones. Before the all the tribes understood what was going
one Europeans were laying claims to the lands that once belong to their
ancestors and were moving in. They could
not fight back because they were weakened in numbers and in military
might. Weakened in numbers because the
demand for slaves in the Americas (Central and North America) was so high it
put a lot of pressure for slave traders to keep up with it. When Black people came to the United States,
they came as cargo and was sold as property, and was treated as such. In contrast, this was very different from the
indentured servitude that poor Europeans endured under richer house
masters. Under indentured servitude a
man may serve his master for 7 years and at the end of those years he may
choose to obtain his freedom. This was
not the case with the Black slaves, they were not indentured servants. They
were property period. The only way for Black people to gain their freedom back
then was to run away or rebel against their Slave Masters. However, some Blacks were treated fairly and
kindly by their slave owners and those Slave owners taught their slaves about
Christianity. Christianity was never
forced upon an individual, but people living under a tribal mindset could not
believe in a tribal God of wood or Stone that did not protect them from
becoming slaves. For this reason many
slaves wanted to learn of the God of their Masters. After learning about Jesus Christ and his
sacrifice upon the cross for their sins many slaves became Christians. But becoming Christians did not make them
become free of the chattel slavery they were subjected to. There were only certain things they were
allowed to learn from the bible that was interpreted and was believed it pertained to being a good slave. They were not allowed to understand anything
else until the coming of the civil war. What
people don’t understand that the civil war was not just about slavery, it was
about what style of life all Americans wanted to survive and represent their
Christian culture. You see, the rest of
the world was outlawing the slave industry, because black people were proving
to be more than property or savages.
Take Crispus Attucks, He was the first man to die for the independence
of the United States from Britian. He
was Black. He was not an indentured servant and he was not a slave. He was an
intelligent Black man schooled in England who came to the United States seeking
to own land and create a business enterprise for himself. It is documented
sparsely throughout early American History were blacks were instrumental in the
United States becoming a nation. Benjamin Banneker, designed the pocket watch
and drew the city plans for Washington D. C.
Blacks were proving to be more than property, many entered the civil war
to earn their freedom from slavery and free their own people from the same. The
movie “Glory” is the true story of a regiment of United States Negro soldiers
who broke through the lines of the United Confederate States forces at Fort
Sumpter during the close of the Civil
war is a good example of this fact. After when the civil war came to a close
and slavery became an extinct and illegal business practice in the United
States . Many slaves in America gathered
themselves together and formed churches, and educated themselves through
reading the bible. Like the Church of God in Christ or COGIC for short and the National
Original Free Will Baptist Church, was started way back then. Many of the Negro Universities in the South
was founded by these black churches, like Grambling, Hillman and Lane College, These
institutions are still here with us today.
As Black Americans better understood the scriptures, the more they
advanced in the United States. The more
they fought for their civil and human rights and won them. The very rights that
we take for granted today, like having the freedom to live wherever you desire
to live, decent housing, being able to work a job to earn a living like anyone
else and the power and the freedom to vote.
Today the average Afro-American
knows only a little about Christianity and how it became positively apart
of their heritage and culture It is this
ignorance that being and has been preyed upon some to assert that somehow Christianity was
forced upon an enslaved populace. No the
truth is that the enslaved populace sought out and embraced Christianity
because they saw that their tribal Gods were not powerful enough to protect
them from becoming slaves.
Links:
2.
What was our original religion before Christianity prior to African
colonization?
There
was no one set religion prior to European Colonization. There were many different pagan tribal
religions in Africa before the introduction of Christianity. Many of the African Tribes that were taken
from Africa to the US were taken from the part of the African Continent which
practiced prayer and worship through animal sacrifices. This type of prayer and worship dates back to
their forefather, Ham, the son of Noah. Who probably learned the worship of the
divine through animal sacrifice from his father Noah and passed the practice to
his sons who spread all over the African continent. That is the original
religion of Africa. Christianity then
came and dominated the Northern part of the African continent. Christianity spread over the
Northern side of Africa not by bloody conquests, but by the preaching of the
saint John Mark, the evangelist and the Apostle Thomas. Islam came 600 years after the peaceful
expansion of Christianity into Africa by bloody conquest and swept through northern Africa and Spain. There is no record except in Alex Haley’s
“Roots” of Islam reaching the Central African region, but by that time the
slave trade was in full production and most of the tribes of Western and Central
African were gone.
I
must say here that in my personal studies of this issue, I have found out that
when the Muslim Arabs swept through northern Africa by force, they also
acquired Africans as slaves for their great empire.
3.
If Black folk (aka Afro-Americans) were meant to be Christians, why is
Christianity
separated
and segregated?.
What?
Everyone is meant to be Christians through the preaching of the Gospel. This is because the Gospel is available for
everyone to receive including Black people.
This question shows the ignorance of what the black slaves found out
about Christianity when they sought it out and embraced it. They found out that Jesus died for all
mankind, regardless of ethnicity or race for the salvation of all. Many of these people do not know that one of
Jesus’ disciples was a Canaanite, a descendant of Ham, the Father of all who
are native to Africa. Jesus picked him to be a disciple and allowed him to
partake in his ministry. The reason many Black people do not know this fact is
because they don’t know that they are direct descendants of Ham, the son of
Noah. I ask you this: If African people
were not meant to be Christian then why did John, the Evangelist and later the
Apostle Thomas preach the Gospel throughout Northern Africa? Why did Northern Africans convert to Christianity
through the preaching of the Gospel if it was not for them to receive it? It is because Jesus instructed his Apostles
to preach the Gospel starting from Jerusalem unto the ends of the earth. This is known as the great commission which
is still being carried out today.
Christianity is now all over the world through the preaching of the
Gospel. Those who believe that black
people were never meant to hear or receive the Gospel message have their
history lacking verifiable information.
Why is Christianity separated and segregated then? It could be from a number of things from a
disagreement over doctrine or some people’s ethnic fear of other ethnic groups,
ignorance of other ethnic groups that claim to be Christian, ethnic preferences
or a preference of different worship styles. I remember visiting a Church long
ago with my wife. We were trying to find a place of worship that we felt that
was suitable for us. This church did not
have any minority members in it. No one
was friendly toward my wife and I, we really felt uncomfortable there. Suffice it to say that we did not join that
church. The church we did eventually
choose to join was a church where there was a mixture of races represented and
were very friendly toward us. My wife
and I are an Afro-Hispanic-American couple. So I could say that we felt
comfortable in a church where we were not representing the minority race. In
saying that, people must understand that Christianity is not a white man’s religion;
it is a black man’s religion. I say this because Christianity is not an
American religion. .It did not take its form or start in the United States. It is an African religion. How can that be? This is how that can be and is. Many map
makers in Medieval times considered what is now known as Asia Minor or the
Middle Eastern part of the world as a part of Africa. They did this because they regarded the
natural boundaries between continents such as Seas, Rivers and Mountains. Now according to this, Asia is separated from
Europe by a Mountain range that runs from North to South and the Black Sea.
Asia is also separated from Africa by the Mountains that extend out of Eastern
Turkey South of the Black Sea and to the west of the Caspian Sea and is on the
Northern side of the River Euphrates and the Sea of Acquba. Israel is therefore in Africa, therefore
making Christianity originally an African religion. Since Christianity
developed from the Land of Israel. This proves that Christianity is not a just
an European religion. The Maps today do not necessarily follow natural
boundaries and more modern Europeans segregated the north east of Medieval
Africa from the rest of Africa and gave it to Asia and called it Asia Minor. In
these modern times it is referred to as the Middle East. Meaning it is the in
the Middle of the Eastern Hemisphere of the planet. No regard is given to its natural boundaries.
What you see today is black people reclaiming their religion, but some black
people have been so alienated by what Europeans have done to them that they
reject the very religion designed for them.
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