Introduction
Many African Americans believed that it is their divine mission to take Christianity to Africa. There have been many African Americans in late 1700s and early 1800s, which traveled to Africa with the sole purposes of evangelizing and establishing churches. Men such as David George, Lott Carey and Colin Teague, where some of the first African Americans who went to Africa to promote Christianity. Their efforts to spread Christianity presented a justification for the inhuman bondage suffered by people of African descent in America.1 In this paper, I will show how African Americans went from being slaves in the United States to being evangelical missionaries to their home country of Africa. A Historian by the name of Albert Raboteau states that those African American missionaries believed, “that God was drawing good out of the evil of slavery by using the American descendents of African slaves to take Christianity to the lands of their ancestors”.2
Early African American Missionary Activity
Majority of the first African American missionary activity involved the sending freed Black slaves back to Africa.3 Blacks and Southern land owners, who feared that the freed Blacks would come back to start a revolution, Northern politicians and clergy all thought that the free black slaves would want to go back to their homeland.3 This movement caused a lot of unrest in the African American community about whether or not this was a good idea.5
1. Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro-American People. (1972) Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993. pp. 1-21.
Raboteau, Albert J. Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans. Oxford: Oxford University 2001. pp. 33...
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... Publishers, 2002. Retrieved 5/6/2014 from http://missionbooks.org/williamcareylibrary/product.php?productid=10&cat=0&page=1
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
Today, even though the number of black churches has grown tremendously the number of black missionaries has declined. According to a 2013 Christian Times article, out the 4900 Southern Baptist Convention missionaries only 29 are black.50 We as culture need to get back to being dedicated to missionary work. There are a lot of people claiming to be Christians, but are they really? The question that needs to ask is you really a Christian, and if so what are you doing to either help others or spread the gospel?
50 Sarah E. Zylstra."Black Churches' Missing Missionaries." ChristianityToday.com. ChristianityToday, 2 Apr. 2013. Web. 06 May 2014.
This paper elaborates on the diverse contributions peoples of African descent have made to the pluralistic religious landscape of America and replicates various passages from our textbook. It focuses on the personal narratives of non-religious to religious leaders—exemplifying their influence on the African American religious movement during slavery and the reconstruction of America. Each section represents different historical periods, regional variations, and non-Christian expressions of African-American religion.
David Walker was “born a free black in late eighteenth century Wilmington,” however, not much more information is known about his early life. During his childhood years, Walker was likely exposed to the Methodist church. During the nineteenth century, the Methodist church appealed directly to blacks because they, in particular, “provided educational resources for blacks in the Wilmington region.” Because his education and religion is based in the Methodist theology, Methodism set the tone and helped to shape the messages Walker conveys through his Appeal to the black people of the United States of America. As evident in his book, Walker’s “later deep devotion to the African Methodist Episcopal faith could surely argue for an earlier exposure to a black-dominated church” because it was here he would have been exposed to blacks managing their own dealings, leading classes, and preaching. His respect and high opinion of the potential of the black community is made clear when Walker says, “Surely the Americans must think...
Becoming a true theologian and scholar deals with not limiting the extents of homiletics. The assumption is that the black preaching tradition is distinct and identifiable. What is interesting for any African American student of homiletics is that while many argue for a defined set of African American homiletic characteristics, there is little agreement on what these characteristics are? When people try to characterize what makes African Ame...
Turner, Darwin T. "Visions of Love and Manliness in a Blackening World: Dramas of Black Life Since 1953." Black Scholar 25.2 (1995): 2-13. EBSCO. Wake Co. Public Lib. 5 Jan. 2001 <http://www.ebscohost.com>.
Kroll, P. (2006). The African-American Church in America. Grace Communion International. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://www.gci.org/history/african
Ogbar, Jeffrey. Black Power Radical Politics and African American Identity. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2004, 124.
Moreover, many owners later came to feel that Christianity may actually have encouraged rebellion (all those stories of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt, after all, talked about the liberation of the slaves), and so they began to discourage Christian missionaries from preaching to the slaves. African Americans have taken their own spiritual, religious journey. God was looked upon as a source of peace and encouragement. The community of enslave Africans were able to use religion and spirituality as a way of overcoming the mental anguish of slavery on a daily basis. To a slave, religion was the most important aspect of their life. Nothing could come between their relationship with god. It was their rock, the only reason why they could wake up in the morning, the only way that they endured this most turbulent time in our history.
Black caucuses developed in the Catholic, Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches. "The central thrust of these new groups was to redefine the meaning and role of the church and religion in the lives of black people. Out of this reexamination has come what some have called Black Theology.... ... middle of paper ...
History shows that both Africans and African Americans alike faced unique problems prior to and during the 1800's, particularly prior to 1865. One such problem is the issue of Diaspora and how culture and slavery has affected the choice of religion. It is the purpose of this paper to expose comparatively the extent to which individuals have been influenced by these issues. One such individual is Olaudah Equiano. By following and analyzing some of the key moments of faith in his life, this paper seeks to expose the extent to which the series of controversial dialectical incidents that happen throughout his early life, i.e., his cultural African religious traditions (thesis), and Christianity as taught by his slave masters (antithesis), had a direct influence in developing his own understanding of religion (synthesis). Furthermore, this paper will demonstrate Olaudah Equiano's decision was based on the impact of both the influences of culture and slavery, and a personal experience based on his perspective of divine intervention.
Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Print. The. 2003 Roberts, Deotis J. Black Theology in Dialogue. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. Print.
Imagine a group of foreign people invading your home, disavowing all your beliefs, and attempting to convert you to a religion you have never heard of. This was the reality for thousands and thousands of African people when many Europeans commenced the Scramble for Africa during the period of New Imperialism. A great fiction novel written by Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, highlights the responses to missionaries by African people. The African natives responded to the presence of white missionaries with submission to their desires, strategic responses to counteract them, and with the most disruptive response of violence.
...cy." Western Journal Of Black Studies 28.1 (2004): 327-331. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Sept. 2013.
Slave-owners forced a perverse form of Christianity, one that condoned slavery, upon slaves. According to this false Christianity the enslavement of “black Africans is justified because they are the descendants of Ham, one of Noah's sons; in one Biblical story, Noah cursed Ham's descendants to be slaves” (Tolson 272). Slavery was further validated by the numerous examples of it within the bible. It was reasoned that these examples were confirmation that God condoned slavery. Douglass’s master...
This has been a pretty thought-provoking last and final semester here at R.I.C.E. I am happy that the next journey has already begun and I am extremely grateful for how much I have absorbed. For this reflection I will focus on three major points or themes. I have been lucky enough to get two different perspectives on the details about mission work from two great teachers. Both perspectives have helped to shape my experience and redirect my thinking for the subject. While there are many things to reflect on the points I would like to discuss are centered on a few points. 1) A greater gratefulness for the work of missionaries, 2) the delusion around African Americans involvement in early mission work, 3) the dyer need in the active continued presence on the missionary field.
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”- Bishop Desmond Tutu.