Black Church History and
Theology Part 2
The Religion of the Slave
The Religion of the Slave
► Embracing
the Gospel did not mean
accepting enslavement as a “Providential
Mercy”
► Islam continued to thrive
 Strict Muslims
 Syncretism
► British
N. American slavery African religion
lost its heritage
The Religion of the Slave
► The
Debate
 A Continuity exist in the slave that meant the African
beliefs in the US was different than in the Caribbean
► E.
Franklin Frazier
 African retention in U.S. were negligible
 Africans stripped of his culture
► Melville
J. Herskovits
 African retention in U.S. was apparent
 Africanisms continue today to define African American
Culture in the U.S.
The Religion of the Slave
► Herskovits
Disputes 5 Myths
 1. The Black man are naturally of childlike
character and adjust easily to the most
unsatisfactory situatins
►Sophisticated
culture & world view
►Not content to be solaves
 2. Only the poorer stock of Africans enslaved
►Rivals
were from royalty
►Sold into slavery
The Religion of the Slave
► Herskovits
Disputes 5 Myths
 3. Slave were brought from all parts of the continent
spoke diverse languages and had different customs
► Coastal
West Africa
► Sudanic and Bantu
► Unified Culture
 4. Culture was so savage and compared to their
European conquerors
► Active
in the acculturation process
► Small size in numbers increased acculturation
► Traditional acceptance common in religion took over the gods of
opponants
The Religion of the Slave
► Herskovits
Disputes 5 Myths
 5, The African is man without a past
►Strong
cultural history
►Contributors to American scene
The Religion of the Slave
► E.
Franklin Frazier
 Retention in Latin, South America & Caribbean
►Not
survive in U.S.
►Vacuum filled by Christianity
►Deculturation began on the other side of the Atlantic
►Males were poor carriers of culture
►The Process of Seasoning
►Mobility restricted
►African Memories forgotten
The Religion of the Slave
► Herskovits
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
versus Frazier
Frazier asserts flimsy evidence
Scientific grounds
Baptist related to water cults
Magic and folk lore
Historical continuity
Survival of African culture
Separatist and Integrationist
Slave Owners in Cognitive Dissonance
The Religion of the
Slave Owner
Conversion
► From
the beginning of the Atlantic slave
trade conversion considered as justification
for slavery
► England, Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands,
and France; missionary zeal, colonization
and Christianizing slaves and Indians
How could the Slave
owners be true to
their faith and justify
their actions?
Conversion
► Reasons
for refusal by English planters
 Baptism made it necessary to free slaves
 Preaching to slave ran counter to the economic
interest of the Christian slave owner. Time,
leisure, days idle.
 Slave where to brutish to be instructed.
Overcoming linguistic challenges
The Slave owners
reached a cognitive
dissonance between
their belief in God and
their actions in slavery.
Conversion
 Racial distinctions; blacks were creatures of
another species versus missionary claim that
blacks equal to whites in the sight of God.
 Christian slaves presented egalitarianism; slaves
would claim fellowship that would threaten the
master-slave hierarchy
I. Biblical
Justification?
1.Scripture
2. The Gospel
3. Belief in
Judgment
Eph 6:5-9
5
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with
sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
6
Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you,
but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.
7
Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men,
8
because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for
whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
9
And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten
them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in
heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
(NIV)
The Christian Directory of the English Puritan
“Make it your chief end
in buying and using
slaves to win them to
Christ and save their
souls.”
Richard Baxter
II. Christian
Catechesis
…”The best and most effectual
method then of delivering these
poor Creatures out of darkness
and to make them partakers of
light …is to ..instruct them in
the Fundamental Truths of
Christianity.”
Rev. Zouberbuhler
III. Fear of
Conversion
“They knew that instinctively
that any attempt to educate or
indoctrinate their workers
would in the long run change
the precarious relationship
between master and slave “
Wilmore
IV. Gospel of
Freedom
“Missionaries in the field
complained that the
“Wicked life of the
Christians” was an obstacle
impeding the conversion of
Africans .” Raboteau
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► Black
Religion and Insurrection
► Henry Garret & Henry Turner along with the
radical abolitionist made America Aware of
malcontent slavery



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Information Suppressed; fear of uprisings
No Fervor among free Blacks; lynching
Insurrections underplayed; Over 250 known occurred
Motivated by Christianity, Baptist, Quaker and Methodist
missionaries stirred up a legacy secret rebellion
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► Alexander
Young's Ethiopian Manifesto
► David Walker Appeal to Coloured Citizens of
the World
► Pre Civil War Insurrections
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► Several
events in the middle 1800's showed
how unhappy slaves were. Two famous
slaves who decided to fight their masters
were Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner. A third
was a slave Named Gabriel
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► Gabriel
The Black Samson
 Judges 15:14-15, 20
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► The
Methodist Conspirator
► Denmark Vesey planned a major slave
rebellion near Charleston, South Carolina in
1822. This plan was discovered and the
slave owners stopped the rebellion.
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► Baptist
Prophet of Rebellion
► Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 turned out
differently. Over 100 blacks and 60 whites
were killed in the rebellion. Turner hid for
six weeks after the uprising. He was
eventually tracked down by dogs. Turner
was tried and found guilty. He was then
hanged.
► Rebellions
worried
slave owners. In
1790 a good field
hand was worth
about $300. In
1869 they were
worth $2000.
Guards rode the
roads in the South
each night looking
for runaway slaves.
The Need for Revelation
Proverbs 29:18
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines vision as:
“a revelation from God”
It can be stated as “The Prophetic Voice”
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► Beginnings
of the Black Freedom Movement
 Revolutionary War 1st black freedom movement
1770’s 100yrs form emancipation
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► Richard
Allen and the Free African Society
► The AME and AME Zion Churches
► The Presbyterians and Episcopalians
► Black Churches and the Antebellum
Freedom Movement
The Black Church Freedom
Movement Wilmore pg.99-101
► Some
Facts
 From 1750 to 1861 there were more black and
white Christians worshiping in the same
congregations, proportionate to their numbers
as baptized Christians, than there are today.
 White preachers officiated most early black
congregations. Black preachers were warned
that they had a sacred trust from the white
community.
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► The
black minister, not naïve, and very
intelligent, knew how to maintain
deportment and discipline.
►Active
politicians
►Political influence
►Natural leaders of the race
►Energy and decision of character
►The pulpit a rostrum
►His political harangues have a religious echo
The Black Church Freedom
Movement
► Independent
Black Congregations
 It was a necessity for consolation, unity, and
mutual assistance
► In
the South
 Andrew Bryan—pioneer black preacher in GA
 George Liele—organized first black Baptist
congregation in the Caribbean
► In
the North
Black Religion and Black Nationalism
► The
American Colonization Society
► Martin R. Delany
► Alexander Crummell
► Edward W. Blyden
► Henry M. Turner
► The Hamitic Hypothesis
► Resistance to White Rule in Africa
Prophetic Voices Post Slavery
“The Straw Taken Away”
Martin Delaney (1800’s) – Back to Africa
“ A spiritual blessing is to be prayed for, a moral good
sought by exercising one’s sense of justice, and a
physical end requires the use of might and muscle.”
Wilmore, 137.
Prophetic Voices Post Slavery
“The Straw Taken Away”
Alexander Crummell (1800’s) – Back to Africa
“Christianity for Crummell was a religion for the tough
minded, enterprising persons who developed their natural
energies, skills, and “worldly talent” to serve their own
needs first, precisely because only so God, who had
brought them out of bondage for that purpose, use them
to serve the needs of others.” Wilmore, 141.
Prophetic Voices Post Slavery
“The Straw Taken Away”
Henry Turner (1800’s) – Back to Africa
► Back to Africa
► Reparations for injustice of slavery
► God is Black
“. . . as long as we remain among whites the Negro will
believe that the devil is black and that he (the Negro)
favors the devil, and that God is white and that he (the
Negro) bears no resemblance to Him . . .” Wilmore, 152.
Prophetic Voices during Slavery
“The Years of Bondage”
Robert Alexander Young – “Ethiopian Manifesto” (1829)
►
►
►
Self Responsibility
Analogy to OT Exodus
Vision of coming Black Messiah
David Walker – “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World” (1829)
►
►
►
►
Prophesied Judgment against White Slave Holders
Themes of sin and retribution based on biblical view of the justice of God
and redemption of human history through the power of love
Summons Blacks to fight in self-defense for freedom and dignity in the
name of the Lord of hosts.
Theme of reconciliation based on inevitability that whites will reap what
they have sown.
Prophetic Voices during Slavery
“The Years of Bondage”
Denmark Vesey – Methodist Conspirator (1822 – South Carolina)
►
►
►
►
►
Parallels to OT Exodus and Conquest of Jericho
Referred to Haiti – Toussaint L’Ouverture
Plotted Insurrection – 3,000 – 9,000 participants
Foiled by internal traitor
131 Arrested, 37 Executed
Nat Turner – Baptist Prophet of Rebellion (1831 - Virginia)
►
►
►
►
►
Prophetic Visions
Saw Jesus coming with the sword
Implemented the bloodiest salve insurrection in American History
57 Whites Killed
53 Blacks arrested, 21 acquitted, 12 transferred out of State, 20
Hanged
The Deradicalization of the
Black Church
► Decline
of Bishop Turner’s Influence
► Deterioration of Race Relations
► Marcus Garvey
► Black Pentecostalism
► The Church of God
► The Moorish Science Temples
► Retreat of the Mainstream Churches
The Dechristianization of Black
Radicalism
► Black
Radicalism
► Dechristianization and Rechristianization
► The Black Power Movement
Black Power, Black People, and
Theological Renewal
►A
Critical Turning Point: September 1967
► The Black Manifesto
► Black Theology
Survival, Elevation, and Liberation in
Black Religion
► The
African American Experience
► The Survival Tradition
► The Elevation Tradition
► The Liberation Tradition
► Interrelationships Between the Three
Traditions
Survival, Elevation, and Liberation
in Black Religion
►
The Three Basic Assertions
1.
2.
3.
Within American culture as a whole there was and
continues to be a complex and distinctive subculture
that may be designated black or African American
Despite sociological heterogeneity, with respect to such
secular factors as regional differences, education,
gender, and socioeconomic background, religion has
been and continues to be an essential thread
interweaving the fabric of black culture
Religiousness, oscillating between conservatism and
radicalism, has been and continues to be a persistent
characteristic of black life in the United States, Africa,
South America, and the Caribbean—wherever the
animating spirits of Africa have touched the quick of
the human heart
The African American Experience
Beyond mere survival, as leaders and followers
became more sophisticated about how to make
the most of their religion, it has helped them
liberate themselves…
1.from chattel slavery
2.from ignorance and degradation
3.from civil inequality and subordination
…to go on to greater heights of personal and
group achievement.
The African American Experience
African American religion has not always
functioned for the advancement of the masses
► Even the most skeptical observers of the black
religious experience in America cannot deny
that religion and its ancillary institutions have
served the people positively
► The race survived because of the church
►
The African American Experience
Paternalism never really worked as it was
supposed to
► Economic value was realistically calculated and
made secure by the imposition of discipline and
the monopoly of violent power in the hands of
the masters
► The slave had no claim to the master’s wealth, as
a son or daughter would
►
The Survival Tradition
►The slave’s obsession was somehow
“to make it”
►Survival became the regulative,
moment-to-moment principle of the
slave community, particularly among
field hands
The Survival Tradition
►
In their quarters after sundown and on Sundays and
holidays, slaves pieced together the tattered remnants of
their African past and new patterns of response to the
American environment
1. They selectively chose attitudes of disbelief
2. They chose codes of dissimulation and subterfuge
3. They chose structures of meaning
The Survival Tradition
• View of reality and coping skills that would make human
survival possible under the conditions of their enslavement
• Into this strategy of survival they invoked the protecting
spirits of the gods of Africa, or in time, the new God of
Christianity
• From the beginning, certain men and women who
possessed power for both good and evel, skilled in sorcery
and divination, exercised extraordinary influence over the
slaves
• They occasionally appear as the first recognized leaders of
the community
• What was left of the old African religions was transplanted
and integrated into the new culture of enslavement
The Elevation Tradition
► Black
Songs; Spirituals
What were the slaves trying to say when they
mixed OT allusions to Jacob’s ladder and NT
allusions to being “soldiers of the Cross”?
 John Lovell; Black Song: The Forge and the Flame (New York:McMillan,1972) “The
captive black men and women who sang the lines of the
spiritual ‘We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder’ pictured
themselves as climbing , one round at a time, out of
their misery. Ike many other songs suggest a “moral
building function” a determination to improve their
earthly condition, to encourage individual and group
initiative.
The Elevation Tradition
► Black
Women
Most ardent champions of a doctrine of elevation
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Concerned about the stability of the family
The education of children
The cultivation of Christian morality
Organized female societies and auxiliaries in male
dominated churches.
► Delores
Williams(Quality of life tradition) Sisters in the Wilderness:
The Challenge of Womanist God-talk (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1993)
The Liberation Tradition
► The
Liberation tradition stands out as the
single most important and characteristic
perspective of black faith from 1800 to the
Civil Rights movement.
► From Jamestown ,Va. In 1863 to The
Emancipation Proclamation on New Years
Day, 1863, the African American
consciousness and culture were permeated
with the idea of freedom.
Interrelationship Between the Three
Traditions
► African
Americans in the U.S. and the
Caribbean are Christian in a sense that is
different from what the American public
generally understands by the term. (pg.269)
► Incipiency (Pg. 271)
► Coalescence (Pg. 273)
► Fragmentation (Pg. 274)
Crossing the Jordan:
The Indictment on the Black
Church
A Prophetic Approach to
Understanding the Plight of
the Black Community
The Prophetic Voice
Andrew Bryan (1737-1812) -pastored the first African Baptist
Church of Savannah. He was flogged, imprisoned and
dispossessed of his church. Such efforts to curb the
proclamation of the gospel could only have convinced him that
the gospel must be linked to the freedom and well-being of
blacks (wilmore 102).
► Henry M. Turner (1834-1915) AME bishop who held to a
theology of black liberation. After the Civil War he won a seat to
the Georgia State Legislature.
► Robert Young’s “Ethiopian Manifesto” in 1829 called for
liberation and prophesied judgment for injustices in America.
►
Response to Prophetic Direction
► Reconstruction
Era saw 20 blacks win seats in the
U.S House of Congress, 5 of which served multiple
terms.
► 2 blacks won seats to the U.S Senate. Since that
time only 3 blacks have been members of the
senate.
► The state of Georgia alone saw 69 blacks admitted
as members either to the Constitutional
Convention or the state legislature.
Response to Prophetic Direction
► By
1870 the AME Church had established
Wilberforce University, a bank and raised $1 Million
to educate their children.
► Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary was founded in
the basement of Friendship Baptist in Atlanta. The
church self-capitalized to start and maintain the
university until 3 years later John Rockefeller paid
the debt on the school. It was renamed Spelman
in honor of his in-laws, longtime activists against
slavery.
Response to Prophetic Direction
► 1865-
13th Amendment passed outlawing
slavery
► 1868- 14th Amendment passed making all
persons born in the states natural born
citizens
► 1870- 15th Amendment was passed ensuring
all citizens the right to vote
The Great Compromise
► The
Compromise of 1877- Democrats
conceded to Rutherford Hayes’ election as
president, thus ending the controversy.
► In Exchange the Republicans agreed to stay
out of southern affairs
► A people delivered from Egypt were
apprehended by pharoah and delivered
again into bondage
Silencing the Prophetic Voice
►
►
►
At the turn of the century many black clergy began to
succumb to defeat and emphasize the life beyond. Joseph
Washington judges to church to be irrelevant (Wilmore
173).
Mobilization against poverty and oppression is absent. The
church is apathetic, otherworldly or only concerned with
institutional maintenance (Wilmore 191).
Many blacks up north who were moving up into the middle
class competing with whites did not turn around to extend
a hand to the newly arriving poor blacks from the south
(wilmore 170)
Silencing the Prophetic Voice
►
►
►
While mainline denominations go middle class, other
denominations and groups such as the UNIA spring up in
the black community to fill the void. The black church is
into institution building (wilmore (175)
James Cone says: “Theology ceases to be a theology of the
gospel when it fails to come out of the community of the
oppressed.” (Liberation, 17)
Rudy F. Johnson: Black church movement to middle class
norms and values of dominant society alienated it from the
blacks with whom it began (wilmore 195)
Realpolitik and Vox Populi
Realpolitik- a pragmatic application of any
technique by which an individual or a group can
maintain or enhance life. It is manipulative,
works at the expense of others, and undermines
the essential nature of revelation.
► Vox Populi- (“the voice of the people”) is a form
of Realpolitik. Rewards all who support the
common ideals but punishes anyone who
challenges them. Vox Populi shuns the absolute
demands of revelation by softening the radical
nature of faith in favor of popular expectations.
► James Cone says that oppressors can destroy
the reveloutionary mood among the oppressed
by introducing a complacent God into the
community (Liberation, 109)
►
The Prophetic Returns
► Martin
Luther King Jr. emerges as a prophetic
voice from the black church for justice to the
nation
► The prophetic voice called the nation to attention
and moblized people: Christian and non-Christian
alike
► King’s non-violent strategy played a crucial role in
the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the
Voting Rights Act in 1965: both being changes in
policy
► Sadly,
efforts
the church as a whole did not back King’s
What of the
Future?