There is a distinct problem with religion in this country. The churches of America have become racially divided, creating inequalities amongst our populace. Racial divisions run deep, and there is an undeniable relationship between religion and racism. Since the inception of this country, we have been racially divided. These divisions continued throughout the 20th century, and continue to this very day. These divisions often include, but are not limited to social and political values.
Racism in America's religious institutions can be traced to the very roots of America. Original religious views on other races had little bearing in everyday life. White Christians `paid little attention to slaves' souls' (22), and often viewed them as less than human. In the early 1730's, evangelicalism began to gain strength amongst slave holders. It was believed that being Christian made the slaves better workers and obey their masters more fully. The movement to `Christianize' slaves was fully put forth by evangelist George Whitefield in 1740 (25). He traveled the countryside, `saving' slaves from all parts of the country, and Christianizing them to become better slaves. George Whitefield's main point in the Christianizing of slaves was simple, ."..God allowed slavery for larger purposes, including the Christianization and uplifting of the heathen Africans." (27).
The Revolutionary War, starting in the 1770's, brought new life and conflict to the issues of slavery. By the late 1770's, many evangelicals had begun to denounce slavery as a sin, and a practice that `brings dishonor to the Christian name' (28). In 1808, a celebration for the abolition of slave trade was staged. Many prominent evangelicals of the time were on hand to speak. ...
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... It is imperative that white and black churches work together to continue to find solutions to closing the racial gap that has opened in the last forty years.
White evangelicalism has been working to help increase racial diversity amongst religion. However, their efforts seem to be failing. It is becoming more and more apparent through history, social life, and politics, that white evangelicalism is not doing the right things to help desegregate the black evangelicals. "Despite devoting consid¬erable time and energy to solving the problem of racial division, white evangelicalism likely does more to perpetuate the racialized society than to reduce it" (170). Much more needs to be done in the coming decades to ensure that we can reduce racial inequalities in the church, and hopefully one day close the gap to nothing, creating an all inclusive Christian church.
Roswell Street Baptist Church was once a slave plantation, but now seeks to reach intercultural, and intergenerational body of believers. Martin encourages not to be entrapped by nationalism, but to adopt the view Christ has which is His people, from all nationalities. Marin states, “Indeed, if all nations and all peoples would look to to God and acknowledge God as sovereign, there would be relative international order, harmony, and peace.” (Martin, 212, 2004) Roswell Street Baptist church has the history chains of being a “white supremacist” church that judged anyone: Latino, Muslims, and those with dark skin. Through the years their hearts have changed.
In the first chapter of Nathan Hatch’s book, The Democratization of American Christianity, he immediately states his central theme: democratization is central to understanding the development of American Christianity. In proving the significance of his thesis, he examines five distinct traditions of Christianity that developed in the nineteenth century: the Christian movement, Methodists, Baptists, Mormons and black churches. Despite these groups having diverse structural organization and theological demeanor, they all shared the commonality of the primacy of the individual conscience.
It always maintained that taking someone’s God given right of freedom was against the church preaching’s and beliefs. In addition, some of the first emigrants to the newly discovered land (North America) were slaves themselves and they were white. One of the main reasons they immigrated to North America was to escape religious persecution. The political situation did not help either; too much support to antislavery and the church could lose the much needed support of wealthy churchgoers. The institution stopped short of actively going against the problem of slavery, instead they focused their efforts in making slavery more “tolerable” for slaves. After all, most of the church goers in the south were white slave owners and/or in some way or another supported slavery and the economic factors in benefitted. In the North, the Presbyterian Church had deplored the issue of black and religion; they were never unable or unwilling to tackle the problem from its source. In the North the free blacks had more religious freedom and were allowed to participate in churches or form their own congregations. There was another phenomenon that affected the lives of slaves in the plantations. Most owners controlled all aspects of their slaves to include religion. The owners used the Gospel as a social control method to tell the slaves why they had to obey their masters (according to God) and inculcate and foster the belief of having to serve and be faithful to their
Cotton Mather and John Woolman were two men who had very passionate ideas for the slaves. “Negro Christianized” written by Cotton Mather was an appeal to the slave owners to convert their slaves to Christianity. He primarily focuses on the idea that slaveholders should treat the slaves with dignity and respect along with converting them to Christianity. In John Woolman’s work “Some Considerations On Keeping of Negroes,” he talks about how slavery was detrimental to the slaves and the slave holder. He illustrated through his own conduct the principles of compassion and good will that formed the central message of his itinerant ministry.
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...
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.
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 ...
The African Methodist Episcopal Church also known as the AME Church, represents a long history of people going from struggles to success, from embarrassment to pride, from slaves to free. It is my intention to prove that the name African Methodist Episcopal represents equality and freedom to worship God, no matter what color skin a person was blessed to be born with. The thesis is this: While both Whites and Africans believed in the worship of God, whites believed in the oppression of the Africans’ freedom to serve God in their own way, blacks defended their own right to worship by the development of their own church. According to Andrew White, a well- known author for the AME denomination, “The word African means that our church was organized by people of African descent Heritage, The word “Methodist” means that our church is a member of the family of Methodist Churches, The word “Episcopal refers to the form of government under which our church operates.”
In April of 1963 the Southern Christian Leaders Conference (SCLC) organized a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. African Americans in Birmingham in part with the SCLC arrang...
Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Print. The. 2003 Roberts, Deotis J. Black Theology in Dialogue. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. Print.
This is something that seemed tabo during the 60’s, where America was still racist and segregated. Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple helped to break mant social barriers. “He helped to integrate churches, hospitals, restaurants and theaters…was one of harmony and equality rooted in communism” (Latson). The church had blacks, whites, Asians, etc; they wanted a “rainbow” family. They loved and welcomed all people into their community.
In reviewing this book, I found one dominant sentence that will sum up all of the research and information presented. That theme is this – “all churches if possible, should be multiracial.” While this is idealistic and at the true core is the purest form of Christianity, the question remains on whether congregations want to be multiracial or not. The United States of America is no longer country dominated by one race. The author research in census data says that “the United States has well over 35 million more people of color in 2000 than it did in 1980.” Statistically these numbers will continue to rise to form an even more racially diverse nation. Racially diversity has its challenges even today in this post-modern era. Schools, offices,
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.
The Black Church has played many roles in the black community and their struggle for freedom. During the Black Power era which spanned from the mid 1960’s to the late 1970’s, questions raised about the Black Church’s role in the Black Power Movement. What was its role in the movement, and was it helping to further one of the main goals of the movement to get self-determination for blacks? The Black Church during the Black Power movement helped the black people by providing the black communities with a welcoming, open space, uniting black communities throughout the United States and focusing the communities on one common goal of getting self-determination.