Introduction 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. From Africa through Early America Olaudah Equiano, Traditional Ibo Religion and Culture During 1766, Olaudah Equiano learnt to read the bible and seen amazement at the exact laws and rules his country, Nigeria, have always abided by. After becoming baptized, Equiano identified himself with the Christian abolitionists in England and began to write his first autobiography about Ibo religion. Equiano elaborates on how Christianity correlates with the African descent and its culture. In his passage, he describes the similarities between the Jews and the Africans—from circumcision to offerings, from purifications to washings, from believing in one Creator to life after death. Jupiter Hammon, Address to the Negroes in the State of New York Jupiter Hammon was a distinct minority in the African-American community and was the first black to write and publish poetry. His personality was profoundly religious and conservative, unlike other slaves. Hammon studied the bible and preached to slaves—while teaching the sublimation of spiritual freedom for physical freedom. During 1786, New York City, Hammon addressed members of the African Society—asking slaves to submit themselves to their masters. Hammon conce... ... middle of paper ... ...ement effect was a religious crusade as much as a social and political campaign. Conclusion The second edition of “African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness,” covers the religious experiences of African Americans—from the late eighteenth century until the early 1980s. My paper is written in a chronological order to reflect on the progress blacks have made during the years—by expounding on the earliest religion of Africans to black religion of today. Race Relation and Religion plays a major role in today’s society—history is present in all that we do and it is to history that African-Americans have its identity and aspiration. This course has broaden my knowledge of the religious history of African Americans and enables me to gain greater appreciation for the black churches. Works Cited African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness
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...
Equiano finally gains his liberty and begins to develop his character as he converts his religion and becomes a faithful man. Equiano immerses himself and is allowed to blend into Western society. Works Cited Equiano, Olaudah. [1789] 1987. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.
The narrative of Olaudah Equiano is truly a magnificent one. Not only does the reader get to see the world through Equiano's own personal experiences, we get to read a major autobiography that combined the form of a slave narrative with that of a spiritual conversion autobiography. Religion may be viewed as at the heart of the matter in Equiano's long, remarkable journey. Through Equiano's own experiences, the reader uncovers just how massive a role religion played in the part of his Narrative and in that of his own life. More specifically, we learn of how his religious conversion meant a type of freedom as momentous as his own independence from slavery. As one reads his tale, one learns just how dedicated he his to that of his Christian faith; from his constant narration of the scriptures to the way that Equiano feels a growing sense of empowerment from the biblical texts for the oppressed community. However, at the same time, one may question Equiano's own Christian piety. Did Equiano really seek to tell the tale of his soul's spiritual journey, did he really believe God would set him free or was he simply using religion as a ways of manipulating British and American readers to accept him as a credible narrator. Regardless of which of these facts is true, religion is quite possibly the defining feature of his life story.
The story of Olaudah Equiano and his people went through a lot throughout the time of the 18th Century. Africans faced, “the part of Africa, known by the name of Guinea, to which the trade for slaves is carried on, extends along the coast above 3400 miles, from the Senegal to Angola, and includes a variety of kingdoms.” This is where it first started the business of slavery and selling and buying slaves for them to work for their owners. During this time men and women had to face different types of punishment from adultery and other types of reasons to put them to death, execution, but if the woman had a baby they were often spared to stay with their child. African’s displayed there different types of traditions through weddings, friends, public
Olaudah Equiano in his Interesting Narrative is taken from his African home and thrown into a Western world completely foreign to him. Equiano is a slave for a total of ten years and endeavors to take on certain traits and customs of Western thinking. He takes great pains to improve himself, learn religion, and adopt Western mercantilism. However, Equiano holds on to a great deal of his African heritage. Throughout the narrative, the author keeps his African innocence and purity of intent; two qualities he finds sorely lacking in the Europeans. This compromise leaves him in a volatile middle ground between his adapted West and his native Africa. Olaudah Equiano takes on Western ideals while keeping several of his African values; this makes him a man associated with two cultures but a member of neither.
James H. Cone is the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Dr. Cone probably is best known for his book, A Black Theology of Liberation, though he has authored several other books. Dr. Cone wrote that the lack of relevant and “risky” theology suggests that theologians are not able to free themselves from being oppressive structures of society and suggested an alternative. He believes it is evident that the main difficulty most whites have with Black Power and its compatible relationship to the Christian gospel stemmed from their own inability to translate non-traditional theology into the history of black people. The black man’s response to God’s act in Christ must be different from the whites because his life experiences are different, Dr. Cone believes. In the “black experience,” the author suggested that a powerful message of biblical theology is liberation from oppression.
The core principle of history is primary factor of African-American Studies. History is the struggle and record of humans in the process of humanizing the world i.e. shaping it in their own image and interests (Karenga, 70). By studying history in African-American Studies, history is allowed to be reconstructed. Reconstruction is vital, for over time, African-American history has been misleading. Similarly, the reconstruction of African-American history demands intervention not only in the academic process to rede...
During a most dark and dismal time in our nations history, we find that the Africans who endured horrible circumstances during slavery, found ways of peace and hope in their religious beliefs. During slavery, Africans where able to survive unbearable conditions by focusing on their spirituality.
... This would be no small feat since Christians had for generations practiced and defended not just slavery, but the hatred and demise of anything black or African. Cone's mission was to bring blackness and Christianity together.” # In 1969, Cone published Black Theology and Black Power. In this book, Cone brought attention to racism in theology and proposes a theology addressing black issues, this theology would provide liberation and empowerment of blacks and “create a new value structures so that our understanding of blackness will not depend upon European misconceptions.”
Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Print. The. 2003 Roberts, Deotis J. Black Theology in Dialogue. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. Print.
In his writings, James Cone discusses what he calls a “black theology,” which he defines as “a theology whose sole purpose is to apply the freeing power of the gospel to black people under white oppression,” (31). Cone is concerned with the way black persons are treated so he turns to the Christian gospel, and examines what the gospel has to say about this treatment. Cone also talks about “Black Power,” and how it relates to the Christian faith.
So what is the spiritual legacy of GLBTQ people in Diaspora traditions? The answer is as interesting as the diverse strands of conjure throughout the “New World.” Due to the overwhelming forsaking of West African practices by African-Americans in the United States as well as white anthropologists’ tendency to overlook gender-variance in spiritual traditions borne out of Africa, few mentions of this legacy exist. Within the predominantly Protestant context of the Southern United States during the 18th ...
C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 352. Lindsay A. Arscott, "Black Theology," Evangelical Review of Theology 10 (April-June 1986):137. James H. Cone, "Black Theology in American Religion," Theology Today 43 (April 1986):13. James H. Cone, "Black Theology and Black Liberation," in Black Theology: The South African Voice, ed. Basil Moore (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1973), 92, 96.
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
African Americans are being gathered in worship regardless of denomination. By this we give thanks to God and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It extends fully through the aspects of sharing the common historical reflection in which the community can cooperate to the strength to provide Africans its diaspora. The world viewed itself by the African ways of life due to the cultures that developed.