Alan L. Joplin
Thoughts
Religion, is understood as that which helps humans find orientation "for life in the world, together with motivation for living and acting in accordance with this orientation--that is, would gain, and gradually formulate, a sense of the meaning of human existence.
Religion helps individuals and groups to live in beneficial ways in light of life altering questions such as the problem of evil that are not easily addressed through skills and resources associated with ordinary patterns of meaning and action internalized from infancy on. While through various ritual structures and symbolic sources, humans are enabled to understand their thought and actions as significant and meaningful.
Religion is the "underlying resources of meaning and ritual that inform and fund the ongoing living and dying in a culture as a whole.
Humanism is a religion because it is one way to gain orientation and motivation toward the framing of human life through useful goals and agendas.
Humanism does not replace other traditions, instead it contributes to the diversity, the plurality that characterizes the religious landscape.
African American humanism shares the human-centered emphasis of humanism, but there's a different rationale for this position based upon various forms of oppression encountered by African Americans that were, at times, justified theologically.
Humanism within African American communities revolve around Christianity for responding to moral evil.
Humanism is primarily addressed on the level of the individual and in cultural manifestations such as work songs, the blues, and folklore. Although African
Black humanists understood humanism as a process, an existential process by which one finds and lives his humanity. To be human is to direct one's own life; therefore, Black Humanism calls for decision making and implementation for oneself. Gaining power is an essential element of humanism.
With the development of the Harlem Renaissance and its exploration of uncomfortable and raw life questions as well as the "de-radicalization of churches, " the increase in alternate responses to oppression made space available for humanist interpretations.
Richard Wright was referred to, there are others whose work deserves attention. And beyond a theological exploration of their writings, attention should also be given to the personal religious perspectives of these figures.
James Baldwin or the humanism of a Zora Neale Hurston effect their inclusion in theological reflection and religious studies in general? The literature of the Harlem Renaissance provides insights that not only inform theological reflection because of their concern with religious themes and imagery, but it also provides, when personal positions are considered, a much needed challenge to theological assumptions and ideas of religious normality within Black communities. In this way, they provide license to advocate the humanism I find interesting and noteworthy.
Theologians such as James Cone gave attention to the Black Power movement in a way that displayed the distance between the compatibility of Christianity and Black Power. In his early writings, Cone argues for an understanding of Christianity (and theological reflection) through recognizing the Christ event as an affirmation of the need for power.
July 10, 2001
Islam and African Culture
Islam has been a highly influential factor on the African continent for over a millennium, adding much to the fabric of indigenous African cultures through various dimensions of its religious faith and visual language. As in other parts of the world, Islamic conversion was effected through trade and migration far more often than by force. In Africa, Islam has taken many unique forms as the product of many different conversion experiences. In West Africa, much of this conversion prior to the 18th century occurred through interaction with Islamicized Berber traders, who controlled the trans-Saharan trade routes. On the Swahili coast of East Africa, there are many legends of Muslim princes who came to the coast in the ninth century and settled. More accurately, it was likely Arab or Omani traders who settled, but the legends are valuable testaments to the unique weaving between Islam and indigenous cultures that has occurred throughout both Africa and the world.
The centuries of interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims in Africa brought about many changes in political, social and artistic structures in Africa, and the mosque is the quintessential expression of the symbiotic relationship between Islam and indigenous African culture. As in the rural mosque of Bourgouni illustrates, the built environment is the spatial representation of both Islamic faith - illustrated by the ??? as well as indigenous belief Ð the use of ostrich eggs, a symbol of fertility and purity.
This mixture of the imported and the indigenous is not unique to the meeting of Islam and indigenous African cultures, however, the effects of Islam on indigenous African practices is far more profound, for it changes the ways in which creativity is regarded mentally, and, in some instances, changes the very identity of the maker herself/himself. Furthermore, this interaction shows the intricate relationship between creativity and societal change, for the introduction of Islamic visual practices brought with it new ways for indigenous African to express not only their beliefs but also a more diverse range of patrons and audiences.
It would be shortsighted to see Islamicization as contributing to the death of indigenous African institutions; moreover, to do so would result in a failure to understand both African cultures as well as Islam. The narratives that follow are intended to give a brief overview of Islam in Africa, and, through using mosques as illustrations, the ways in which this relationship has enriched both African cultures and questioned ingrained definitions of Islamic artistic expression as well.
Islam entered Africa shortly after its inception in the seventh century AD. After the death of Muhammad, the rasul, or "messenger," and prophet of Islam, in 632, the first caliph ("deputy of the prophet") of Islam, Abu Bakr, ambitiously undertook a series of military conquests to spread the new faith across the world. Although he died two years later, his nephew, Umar, continued the ambitious program. In 636, the Muslims occupied Jerusalem, Damascus, and Antioch; in 651, they had conquered all of Persia. But they also moved west into Africa, for Arabic culture saw itself as continuous not only with Middle Eastern culture, but with northern African culture as well. In 646, the Muslims conquered Egypt and quickly spread across northern Africa. From northern Africa, they invaded Spain in 711. Look at the dates: Islam is founded in 610 when Muhammed has the first of his revelations in the caves above the city of Qumran. In 711, one hundred years later, the Muslims conquered the Middle East, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, northern Africa, and had just entered Europe. The initial spread of Islam is the single most dramatic cultural change in the history of the world, and it loomed large in the subsequent history of African civilizations.
The largest African cities and kingdoms were located in the Sahel, a desert and savannah region south of the Sahara. After 750 AD, these cities and kingdoms arose because they served as waystations and terminus points for the trade routes across northern Africa. The northern Africans, however, were Muslim; one particular people, the Berbers, were a north African people who were fervently Muslim. The Berbers and their wars of conversion figure very large in the history of the Sahelian kingdoms; by the 1300's, these large kingdoms became Islamic and, more importantly, centers of Islamic learning.
Beyond religion, there are several important cultural practices that the Arabic culture of Islam gave to Africa. The first is literacy. Egypt and the Nilotic kingdoms of the Kushites and the Nubians had long traditions of writing, and the Ethiopians had acquired it through their ties to the Semitic peoples of southern Arabia. But these writing systems did not spread throughout Africa. Islam, however, as a religion of the book, spread writing and literacy everywhere it went. Many Africans dealt with two languages: their native language and Arabic, which was the language of texts. However, this gradually changed as Africans began using the Arabic alphabet to write their own languages. To this date, Arabic script is one of the most common scripts for writing African languages.
With literacy, the Arabs brought formal educational systems. In north Africa and the Sahel, these systems and institutions would produce a great flowering of African thought and science. In fact, the city of Timbuctu had perhaps the greatest university in the world.
Islam also brought social fragmentation. As the faith spread throughout Africa, political authority of established African institutions and kingdoms began to collapse under the burden, particularly when groups of Muslims declared holy war, or jihad, against pagan social groups.
July 11, 2001
The Black Church has historically been a source of hope and strength for the African American community. In 1990, the late professor, C. Eric. Lincoln co-authored, The Black Church in the African American Experience with Lawrence H. Mamiya. They described the, "seven major historic black denominations: the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church; the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church; the National Baptist Convention, USA., Incorporated (NBC); the National Baptist Convention of America, Unincorporated (NBCA); the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC); and the Church of God in Christ (COGIC)," as comprising "the black Church."
Yet it is known that blacks were also members of predominantly white denominations such as the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, United Methodist and Roman Catholic churches. However, Lincoln and Mamiya chose to confine 'the black Church,' to "those independent, historic, and totally black controlled denominations, which were founded after the Free African Society of 1787 and which constituted the core of black Christians."
Since the publication of the Lincoln and Mamiya book, two new black denominations have developed: The National Missionary Baptist Convention (NMBC) and the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF). The FGBCF does not refer to itself as a denomination.
C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamrya, represents ten years of exhaustive field work, data gathering, historical reconstruction, and sociological analysis by this team of sociologists and their associates. Simply put, their primary task is to present as authentIc and objective profile of the Black Church and black religion as we found to be possible.
Lincoln and Mamiya base their analysis on data drawn from over 2,100 churchh and 1,8oo clergy from across the United States. They focus on seven historically black denominations—African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episco\Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal, National Baptist Convention, USA, Natio~ Baptist Convention of America, Progressive National Baptist Convention, and the Church of God in Christ (Pentecostal)—noting that reliable estimates place more than eighty percent of all Blacks who claim some religious affiliation in one of these groups.
The first chapter of the book examines various sociological interpretations of the black religious experience. The authors opt for what they call dialectical model which, consistent with their plea for balance, posits the Black Church as an institution that is involved in a constant series of tensions,. constantly shifting between the polarities in historical time. The dialectical poles include priestly/prophetic, other-worldly/this-worldly, communal/priwatistic, and resistance/accommodation, the latter referring to strategies for racial justice. Throughout the book, the authors rehearse these themes in such areas as the Black Church and politics, black religion and economic development, and the impact of nationalism and the civil rights movement on the Black Church.
The authors also devote separate chapters to such ministry issues as youth in the church, women in ministry, and the role of music in black churches. Helpful chapters that break out and analyze the data according to rural and urban locations also help to give a fuller reading to the complexity of black church life. I was surprised and challenged by the breadth of information concerning social programs in urban churches, new insights into the relationship between clergy education and ministerial performance, stereotype-smashing data on the inadequate remuneration of parish clergy, and candid assessments of denominationalism as a black phenomenon. The heightening tension surrounding the ordination of women is explored with some care using survey data of attitudes toward women in ministry gathered from clergy and laity, male and female, combined with assessment of how cultural patterns and power relationships inform these attitudes. The chapter on youth ministry confirms the long held intuition concerning the churches’ role in influencing poor black young people, but with solid data buttressed with representative success stories that give flesh and structure to this sentiment.
The concluding chapter of the book reflects the spirit of sociological research that motivated and dominated the careers of earlier twentieth-century thinkers such as W. E. B. DuBois, E. Franklin Frazier, and Charles Spurgeon Johnson, i.e., that all sociological study should yield conclusions that inform the development of practical policy and programs for the betterment of the communities studied.
Lincoln and Mamiya have spent their entire professional careers studying the religion of Black Americans. Trained in both iheology and sociology, they bring to their subject matter objective rigor and religious sensitivity. Further, they provide much helpful historical background and relate their findings to the whole sphere of contemporary research on the Black churches. I am confident that all who read the book will delight in its readable style. Clearly, the authors intend for it to be used widely by scholars, clergy, lay leaders, and all who might be concerned with the institutional life of the Black community.
Happily, the study generates impressive new data relative to subjects not previously studied sociologically, such as the rapid growth of the Church of God in Christ, analyses of various issues pertaining to women and youth, and the impact of the Black theology movement on ~. the Black churches, to mention only a few. The study also provides important and unique comparative analyses between ruial and urban churches. Further, it comprises a splendid analysis of the various forms of “holistic” ministry within the Black churches, ministries that demonstrate their deep sense of responsibility in addressing major~ societal problems that threaten the well-being of a disproportionate. number of African Americans. Accordingly, the authors discuss T numerous excellent examples of social ministry as indicators of the church’s continuation of a tradition of holistic ministry in the Black community and their potentiality for greater effectiveness.
The authors do not shy away from discussing specific problems within the internal life of the churches, such as the negative attitudes of many male clergy concerning the ordination of women, the deficiencies of educational programs in the Black churches aimed at, addressing the growing lack of self-esteem among young people, and the low percentage of professionally trained Black clergy.
July 12, 2001
July 16, 2001
RIGHTEOUS DISCONTENT:The Women's Movement
in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920
EVELYN BROOKS HIGGINBOTHAM
Ms. Higginbotham moves beyond the dichotomous thinking that has often short-circuited our attempts to understand the situation of black women...An important, sophisticated, and richly instructive book. Higginbotham's book is populated with fascinating and accomplished women...Her research is impeccable and her work both ambitious and important. Righteous Discontent contributes significantly to the still under appreciated history of the black church in America. Higginbotham has pioneered a study of a long-neglected component of the African-American experience. This book is a powerful and compelling story of the religious life of African-American women and their resistance to racism and sexism. Through Higginbotham's work, the voices of African-American women, which have remained silent too long, emerge distinct and bold."
July 17, 2001 and July 18, 2001
After reading RIGHTEOUS DISCONTENT: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920, I began thinking about what other black women thought.
Black women make up more than half of the population in the black community and 75% of the Black Church. Yet, sadly that their experiences are not reflected in what we know as Black Theology today. Although the emergence of a feminist consciousness has made Black male theologians more sensitive to the contributions of noted Black women, the contributions of these women and countless of other women who labor in the Black church remain silent.
How long will men from oppressed communities continue to remain indifferent to the special oppression of their sisters?
few Black men including theologians, preachers and seminary students truly care about the pain they inflict upon their sisters with their sexist behavior. If Black men are sincere when they say they love their Black sisters then they will be willing to break the silence and hear the cries of the black woman’s pain and to experience with them their physical as well as the physical suffering.
The Black church is one of the most sexist institutions in the Black community and while Black male ministers support Biblical passages that reject slavery and obedience to their masters they fail to take that stance with reference to Paul’s comments about women. They are more inclined to accept those passage when they refer to women and their submission.
Frances Beale speaks from the standpoint of the black woman being the victim of double jeopardy. She relates how the capitalistic system of America purports to destroy the humanity of all people and particularly black people.
Capitalism created situations where the Black man could not find employment and then manipulated and exploited the Black woman by making her the sole breadwinner of the family which led to psychological problems of both and contributed to the turmoil found in the Black family structure. Frances Beale states that neither the Black man nor the Black woman understood these principalities working against them.
Frances Beale discredits the Black males claim that feminism is a white woman’s issue and that capitalism works to the disadvantage of both women and Black people, therefore it is necessary that these two groups work together towards a liberation of all oppressed people in the world.
Theressa Hoover contends that to be a woman, black and active in religious institutions in America is to labor under triple jeopardy. This is evident where black women are confronted with the inequity of being black, a woman and having responsibility of a dedication to the church. Hoovers states that despite the debates going on in religious institutions concerning women, their role, their access to privileges and responsibilities in the priestly hierarchy, and their representation in decision-making places, the black woman remains invisible.
Hoover calls for the black churchwoman to challenge her sisters in other denominations and the clerical male hierarchy in her own. The black woman has been the most oppressed and the least vocal – she has given the most and gotten the least. As Hoover puts it her foresight, ingenuity and “stick-to-itiveness,” has kept many black churches open, many black preachers fed, and many parsonages livable.
It has been the strength and faith of the black woman that has enable the black church to survive in the midst of oppression and economic enslavement. Black women must continue to work within the walls of the church, challenging male theologians and continuing push outward so that the black church can truly serve the black community. The black woman must be freed from the triple barrier of sex, race, and church into a community of believers.
Pauli Murray speaks to a comparative view of Black Theology and Feminist Theology. She describes the task of liberation theology and the emergence of the parallel movements for black liberation and women’s liberation in the United States. Her essay examines the relationship between the two theologies, their common perspectives, the points of tension and the potential for both movements as effective forces within the context of the Christian message.
She describes the focus of black theology as that of the black experience under white racism and feminist theology being concerned with women against male-chauvinist structures of society.
liberation theology can be faithful it must first listen to the voices coming forward from the perspective of the Black woman, who in Jacquelyn Grant’s words are perhaps the most oppressed of the oppressed. Concerned with how the experience of the Black woman questions certain assumptions in liberation theology in general and black theology in particular. The purpose of this article by Grant is to look critically at Black Theology from the black woman’s perspective and determine the adequacy of its conception of liberation for the total Black community. Grant asks with the question “Where are Black women in Black Theology? And she is emphatic that they are indeed invisible and states we need to know why this is the case.
Grant says that a dualism has arisen between black men and black women which makes it not difficult to see why Black women are invisible in Black theology. Black men have deemed it proper to speak for the entire black community, male and female. She states that in a sense the Black man’s acceptance of the patriarchal model is logical and expected since black male slaves were unable to reap the benefits of patriarchy and after emancipation they were not given the opportunity of protecting and providing for Black women and children. It seems only natural that after emancipation these black viewed it as primary importance to reclaim their property – their women and children – their natural right to the man’s world. But Grant expresses this is only natural and logical if one accepts the terms and values of patriarch – the concept of male control and supremacy.
Grant raises another important question dealing with the invisibility of black women in Black theology. If Black men have accepted these patriarchal structures, is there any reason to believe that they would be any more liberating of Black women than White theology was for white women? It would seem natural that in view of the oppression that blacks have suffered that black men would be particularly sensitive to the oppression of others.
Kathern Cleaver says the fact that when leadership was given to women, sexism was right around the corner.
Alice Walker founder of the term womanist. – story of our mothers and grandmothers and how their creativity though silent and to some non-existent provides the creative sparks for black women today. Black women must examine their own identities and lives that have come out of the living creativity that our great grandmothers were not even aware existed within them. How do you feel about Sexism in the Black Church today? Does it truly exist? If so what can be done by Black Males about the invisibility of their black sisters?
Womanist theology is an emergent voice of African American Christian women in the United States. Employing Alice Walker's definition of womanism in her text In Search of Our Mothers' Garden, black women in America are calling into question their suppressed role in the African American church, the community, the family, and the larger society. But womanist religious reflection is more than mere deconstruction. It is, more importantly, the empowering assertion of the black woman's voice. To examine that voice,
Thoughts on Womanist Theology in the USA
• Womanist theology is critical reflection upon black women's place in the world that God has created and takes seriously black women's experience as human beings who are made in the image of God.
• Womanist theology's goals are to interrogate the social construction of black womanhood in
• Womanist theology engages the macro-structural and the micro-structural issues that affect black women's lives and, since it is a theology of complete inclusivity, the lives of all black people.
• Womanist theology assumes a liberatory perspective so that African American women can live emboldened lives within the African American community and within the larger society. Such a new social relationship includes adequate food, shelter, clothing -- and minds which are free from worries so that there can be space for creative modalities.
• Womanist theology draws on sources that range from traditional church doctrines, African American fiction and poetry, nineteenth-century black women leaders, poor and working class black women in holiness churches, and African American women under slavery. In addition, other vital sources.
• Womanist theology, grasps the crucial connection between African American women and the plight, survival, and struggle of women of color throughout the world.
• Womanist theology intentionally pursues and engages the cultural contexts of women who are part of the African Diaspora.
• Womanist theology takes seriously the importance of understanding the "languages" of black women.
• articulations are penned in the annals of the academy. Womanist theology showcases the overlooked styles and contributions of all black women whether they are poor, and perhaps illiterate, or economically advantaged.
• Womanists bring forth the legacy of our grandmamas and great grandmamas and carry their notions in the embodiment of life that we create daily.
• Womanist theology concurs with black theology and feminist theology on the necessity of engaging race and gender in theological conversation.
• Womanist theologians bring to the center the experience and knowledge of those marginalized by a complex layering and overlapping by race, gender, and class experiences of all groups, inclusive of those with privilege and power.
Names associated with the emergence of womanist theology in the U.S.A. are Katie Cannon, Emilie Townes, Jacqueline Grant, Delores Williams, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, Kelly Brown Douglas, Renita Weems, Shawn Copeland, Clarice Martin, Francis Wood, Karen Baker-Fletcher, Jamie Phelps, Marcia Riggs, and Cheryl Kirk-Duggan.
Bibliography
Andersen, Margaret L., and Patricia Hill Collins, eds. Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1992.
Cabral, Amilcar. Return to the Source. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973.
Hooks, Bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston: South End Press, 1988.
Marcus, George E., and M. Fischer. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Rosaldo, Renato. Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.
Thornton, R. "Culture." In South African Keywords, ed. E. Boonzaier and E. Sharp. Cape Town: David Philip, 1988, pp. 17-28.
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
July 19, 2001
In the North, there was no fear of violence from the blacks so the process of establishing exclusive white and black churches proceeded rapidly. The writer has already outlined some events leading to the founding of the first black denomination, the A.M.E. Church in 1816. Peter Williams, a friend of Bishop Alien, separated from a Methodist church with 800 members in New York City in June, 1821, because the whites treated the black Christians poorly. His church was called the A. M.E. Zion after the congregation he started.
The Western Colored Baptist convention was formed in 1853 because of both racial discrimination and desire for control of the churches by black members. It became the primary organization of Northern black Baptists. During this time many white Baptists opposed giving any part to black Baptists in running the Northern Baptist Home Missionary Society. This was the main missionary effort of all Baptist churches. At first the Home Missionary Society did accept contributions from black churches. In the early 1860s, it decided to refuse even the money of the black fellow Baptists. In 1869 the black Baptists established their own missionary society.
The Methodists and Presbyterians admitted and ordained black clergy in this period to serve the growing number of black churches in their denominations. In New York City the Episcopal Church refused regular status to a qualified applicant to General Theological Seminary in 1836. By 1870 with the establishment of 'the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church by a black withdrawal from the Northern Methodists, the churches were almost totally segregated between denominations and within the while denominations.
July 20, 2001
E. Franklin Frazier, black sociologist and historian, gives four reasons for the popularity of churches among the slaves.
• The preachers preached of conditions in the next world that were attractive to oppressed slaves and to others.
• The sermons and the emotional responses expected in the churches were extremely helpful as outlets of suppressed and repressed feelings, especially anger, guilt, and pride.
• The services provided a sense of group solidarity to people whose regional and family ties had been shattered.
• Whites joining these two denominations in increasing numbers, made some blacks proud that they shared a faith with their masters.
Wilmore cites evidence that the African attitudes of man’s basic union with Nature and the involvement of the mind, the emotions, and the body in religion were beneficial carryovers which influenced the blacks towards certain types of Christianity. Regardless of the reason, the Methodist and the Baptist church grew to their present status of being the largest two Protestant denominations for black people by the early 1800's.
Permanent Effect on Black Churches
Writers of black church history agree in some form that the basic approaches of black people to religion were formed during the slave era. Three basic attitudes toward religion are reported by the writers. Franklin Frazier and Joseph Washington contend that during this period the black churches were molded into perversions of Christianity that made the blacks willing to be treated the way that they were. Gayraud Wilmore and Kyle Haselden stress that much of what pleased the whites was really motivated by extreme opposition to slavery and designed to cope with it in the only means possible in a repressive society.
As mentioned before, Wilmore emphasizes characteristics of slave religion which Frazier tends to de-emphasize. Wilrnore also contends that many of these characteristics were adaptations from African religions that were superior in many ways to the Christianity of the whites. The basic approach of slave religion, according to Wilmore, was the fusion of a religious affirmation of both the harshness of life and the joyous sense of God's presence amidst all of life, with a radical this-worldly interest in action against slavery and oppression. He describes this as religion “ .suffused with a sublimated outrage • balanced with patient cheerfulness and boundless confidence in the ultimate justice of God. "
Wilmore contends that African religions as well as Christianity served as the religious foundation for both the joyous other worldly and the dedicated, secular thrusts of slave religion. Wilmore argues that the slaves had a special approach to life from the African religions that was beneficial in helping the slaves survive in dehumanizing conditions. He cites as evidence that many reports of religious dreams, visions, trances, or voices heard in worship services resembled forms handed down for generations.
He also cites the continued confidence of black Christians (who discover that their worship is unlike what is prescribed by white churches or even the Bible) in their forms of religious activity as related evidence. He sees the willingness of slaves to lie for each other when sins were committed against their masters as connected to the extreme togetherness felt by African believers. Also he says the slaves could express blatant sensuality and even humor in their religion (seeming to mimic what the whites expected of them). He says that this was partly the result of the African view of connection of all of life including the sensual aspects of life with worship and gratitude to God.
July 23, 2001
Christianity became alive as slaves began to combine their African religious beliefs with Christian beliefs in order to make up what is called slave religion. At the beginning, between 1619 and the early 1700’s, slave owners were not really trying to convert their slavesi nto Christians. Then, slave owners began to have different thoughts between each other as well. Some believed that slaves were more than inferior so this meant that they should try to acquire Christian redemption. Others believed that converting slaves into Christians would cause many problems because they could start thinking that they were equal to whites since they were sharing the same beliefs. To them, a converted slave would become lazy or even resistant to their white masters.
This society was fairly effective but it was not until the Great Awakenings (1740 and the early 1800’s) that black slaves began to turn towards Christianity in large numbers. Preachers that were related with the Great Awakening emphasized conversion of the heart, encouraged overjoyed body expressions, and required a simple confession of Jesus Christ’s lordship. These ideas were obviously accepted by slaves because they converted throughout the South, but there were some that still resisted some of the theology and religious practices of the Great Awakenings. White preachers taught the slaves that they had to obey their masters as a sign of being faithful to God. In the other hand, white churches still thought that slaves were not equal because they held segregated religious services and controlled the free worship by slaves. Plantation owners went one step further as they established segregated seating by placing the slaves in the rear, in the balcony, or even outside the church windows.
Slaves prayed secretly to God as their only master and asked for them to be liberated from their owners. They reinterpreted Christianity by adding some of their African religion. Slaves identified themselves with the Old Testament Hebrew slaves as they were liberated by God. If God was able to liberate the Hebrew slaves that meant that if the slaves would pray enough to him; the same thing could take place for them. To them, faith was now a belief in and commitment to a God that helped the poor and judged the arrogant and the strong, their owners. Now, God instead of the plantation owner was the actual master of the slaves.
Slaves believed that if God had sided against religious and political powers in the Bible, then he could also help them become free. They believed that Jesus was powerful enough to do anything.
Through their arrangement of God and Jesus, slaves were able to obtain a new meaning in their everyday life. They created things like "discourse of solidarity" in which one slave would never give information about another and even went to the extreme of religious resistance. Rebellion was now taking place. "Invisible Institution" was now clearly shown as slaves were conducting secret worship and prayer far away from the eyes of their masters.
They would meet in the woods where they would get ready to receive a visit from the spirit who made them sing, pray, preach, shout, and enjoy their own free religious space in such an enthusiastic manner. In the Invisible Institution slaves learned things as oratorical skill and started to become leaders. Some received food and clothing but also counseling in order to keep in the right stage of mind.
In 1830’s during the religious awakening in the South the slave owners were now bringing the Gospel to the quarters and this served as social control and as a way to convert the slaves. By 1860, about 15 percent of the slaves were members of either the Baptist or Methodist church. There they heard the same sermons, had the same discipline, and shared the communion table with whites. In the other hand, slaves still did not only follow these formal proceedings. Slaves would still listen to their own black preachers and they would also try to translate the Bible in a way in which it showed that they were God’s chosen people and that Judgment Day would castigate their masters. Slaves turned Christianity into their own terms. If their masters did not follow common Christian behavior then the slaves felt a great superiority over their masters.
Now, in the lower Gulf area, around Louisiana, some slaves followed VOODOO. In other places where slaves were imported illegally from Africa, they practiced Islam. Others did not have a religion at all.
July 25, 2001
The African Methodist Episcopal Church was started in 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by a group of disinherited Americans whose forefathers came from Africa. The leader of this group was a 27 year old "African," Richard Allen. At that time the word "African" was used to designate those persons whom we now call African American.
The movement to organize a church separated from the white peoples' church was started in response to the "Africans" need for opportunities for self-expression and fuller involvement in the service of the worship of God, and in society as a whole. It was the answer to a cry for social recognition as human beings, and the means through which a group of people started on a program which gave them a growing sense of dignity and self-respect.
To foster this program Richard Allen considered it important to conduct night school classes in which his people could learn how to help themselves. Out of these night school classes has come the church's philosophy of education with its strong emphasis upon self-help. The general emphasis has not been significantly changed until this day. In addtion to the educational program of the local church, the A.M.E. Church operates eleven institutions of higher education.
Most religious groups had their origin in some theological, doctrinal, or ideological dispute or concern. But the A.M.E. Church originated as a protest against the inhumane treatment which the helpless people of African descent were forced to accept from the white people belonging to the St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelpha, Pennsylvania. This fact says to us that the organization of the A.M.E. Church was the result of racial discrimination rather than of any theological or doctrinal concern.
The A.M.E. Church is a member of the family of Methodist Churches. Its founder and first active bishop, Richard Allen, felt that no religious sect or denomination would suit the capacity of his people as well as did Methodism with its emphasis upon the plain and simple gospel which the unlearned could understand, and its orderly system of rules and regulations which the underdeveloped needed. He felt that Methodism had what the "African" needed to encourage him to make progress, to worship God freely, and to fill every office for which he had the capability.
The "Africans" who started the A.M.E. Church were very poor and most of them could not read nor write. Yet, under the leadership of Richard Allen, they managed to buy an old blacksmith shop, and to move it to a lot at the corner of Sixth and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they organized Bethel A.M.E. Church (also called Mother Bethel) which stands today as one of the historic shrines of Philadelphia.
In time other African American churches were started in Baltimore, Maryland; Salem, New Jersey; Attlesboro, Pennsylvania; Wilmington, Delaware and other places in the United States. In the year 1816 these churches came together and formed the A.M.E. Church. Richard Allen was elected to serve as the first active bishop.
July 26, 2001
Sojourner Truth fought for the desegregation of public transportation in Washington, DC during the Civil War. She refused to face the indignities of Jim Crow segregation on street cars and had the Jim Crow car removed from the Washington D. C. system. Sojourner Truth brought a local street to a standstill when a driver refused her passage. With the support of the crowd she forced the driver to carry her. During her legendary life, she challenged injustice wherever she saw it. She was an abolitionist, women's rights activist and preacher.
Born into slavery (as Isabella Baumfree) in upstate New York, Sojourner Truth obtained her freedom and moved to New York City. There she began to work with organizations designed to assist women. She later became a traveling preacher and quickly developed a reputation as a powerful speaker. A turning point in her life occurred when she visited the Northhampton Association in Massachusetts. The members of this association included many of the leading abolitionists and women's rights activists of her time. Among these people Sojourner Truth discussed issues of the day and as a result of these discussions became one of the first people in the country to link the oppression of black slaves with the oppression of women.
As a speaker, Sojourner Truth became known for her quick wit and powerful presence. She would never be intimidated. Because of her powerful speaking ability, independent spirit and her six foot frame, she was often accused of being a man. She ended that in Silver Lake, Indiana when she exposed her breast to the audience that accused her.
Sojourner Truth lived a long and productive life. She spoke before Congress and two presidents. Sojourner Truth is best remembered for a speech she gave at a women's rights conference where she noticed that no one was addressing the rights of Black women. Her address reads in part: "Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped over carriages, and lifted ober dicthes and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober muddpuddles, or bigs me any best place. And ain't I a woman? Look at me Looka at me arm. I have ploughes and planted and gathered into barns, and no mand could head me! And ain't I a woman."
As I read, I found some titles/resources I would like to revisit.
Austin, Allan D. African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Baer, Hans A., and Singer, Merrill. African-American Religion in the Twentieth Century: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992.
Brown, Karen McCarthy. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Frazier, E. Franklin.The Negro Church in America. New York: Schocken Books, 1964.
Fulop, Timothy E., and Raboteau, Albert J., eds. African-American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and Culture. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Gardell, Mattias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. C. Eric Lincoln Series on the Black Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.
Jacobs, Claude F., and Kaslow, Andrew J. The Spiritual Churches of New Orleans: Origins, Beliefs, and Rituals of an African-American Religion. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.
Johnson, Paul E., ed. African-American Christianity: Essays in History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Levine, Lawrence W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Lincoln, C. Eric, and Mamiya, Lawrence H. The Black Church in the African American Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990.
Long, Charles H. Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986.
Marsh, Clifton E. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Transition from Separatism to Islam, 1930 -- 1980. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Murphy, Joseph M. Santeria. An African Religion in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.
Pitts, Walter F., Jr. 0 Ship of Zion: The Afro-Baptist Ritual in the African Diaspora. Religion in America Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Raboteau, Albert J. A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.
_____. Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Ray, Benjamin C. African Religions: Symbol, Ritual, and Community. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976.
Sanders, Cheryl J. Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture. Religion in America Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Random House, 1983.
Watts, Jill. God, Harlem U.S.A.; The Father Divine Story. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro-American People. 2d ed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983.
Wardell J. Payne, Directory of African American Religious Bodies: A Compendium by the Howard University School of Divinity (Washington, DC: Howard University Press), 1995.
Thoughts
Religion, is understood as that which helps humans find orientation "for life in the world, together with motivation for living and acting in accordance with this orientation--that is, would gain, and gradually formulate, a sense of the meaning of human existence.
Religion helps individuals and groups to live in beneficial ways in light of life altering questions such as the problem of evil that are not easily addressed through skills and resources associated with ordinary patterns of meaning and action internalized from infancy on. While through various ritual structures and symbolic sources, humans are enabled to understand their thought and actions as significant and meaningful.
Religion is the "underlying resources of meaning and ritual that inform and fund the ongoing living and dying in a culture as a whole.
Humanism is a religion because it is one way to gain orientation and motivation toward the framing of human life through useful goals and agendas.
Humanism does not replace other traditions, instead it contributes to the diversity, the plurality that characterizes the religious landscape.
African American humanism shares the human-centered emphasis of humanism, but there's a different rationale for this position based upon various forms of oppression encountered by African Americans that were, at times, justified theologically.
Humanism within African American communities revolve around Christianity for responding to moral evil.
Humanism is primarily addressed on the level of the individual and in cultural manifestations such as work songs, the blues, and folklore. Although African
Black humanists understood humanism as a process, an existential process by which one finds and lives his humanity. To be human is to direct one's own life; therefore, Black Humanism calls for decision making and implementation for oneself. Gaining power is an essential element of humanism.
With the development of the Harlem Renaissance and its exploration of uncomfortable and raw life questions as well as the "de-radicalization of churches, " the increase in alternate responses to oppression made space available for humanist interpretations.
Richard Wright was referred to, there are others whose work deserves attention. And beyond a theological exploration of their writings, attention should also be given to the personal religious perspectives of these figures.
James Baldwin or the humanism of a Zora Neale Hurston effect their inclusion in theological reflection and religious studies in general? The literature of the Harlem Renaissance provides insights that not only inform theological reflection because of their concern with religious themes and imagery, but it also provides, when personal positions are considered, a much needed challenge to theological assumptions and ideas of religious normality within Black communities. In this way, they provide license to advocate the humanism I find interesting and noteworthy.
Theologians such as James Cone gave attention to the Black Power movement in a way that displayed the distance between the compatibility of Christianity and Black Power. In his early writings, Cone argues for an understanding of Christianity (and theological reflection) through recognizing the Christ event as an affirmation of the need for power.
July 10, 2001
Islam and African Culture
Islam has been a highly influential factor on the African continent for over a millennium, adding much to the fabric of indigenous African cultures through various dimensions of its religious faith and visual language. As in other parts of the world, Islamic conversion was effected through trade and migration far more often than by force. In Africa, Islam has taken many unique forms as the product of many different conversion experiences. In West Africa, much of this conversion prior to the 18th century occurred through interaction with Islamicized Berber traders, who controlled the trans-Saharan trade routes. On the Swahili coast of East Africa, there are many legends of Muslim princes who came to the coast in the ninth century and settled. More accurately, it was likely Arab or Omani traders who settled, but the legends are valuable testaments to the unique weaving between Islam and indigenous cultures that has occurred throughout both Africa and the world.
The centuries of interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims in Africa brought about many changes in political, social and artistic structures in Africa, and the mosque is the quintessential expression of the symbiotic relationship between Islam and indigenous African culture. As in the rural mosque of Bourgouni illustrates, the built environment is the spatial representation of both Islamic faith - illustrated by the ??? as well as indigenous belief Ð the use of ostrich eggs, a symbol of fertility and purity.
This mixture of the imported and the indigenous is not unique to the meeting of Islam and indigenous African cultures, however, the effects of Islam on indigenous African practices is far more profound, for it changes the ways in which creativity is regarded mentally, and, in some instances, changes the very identity of the maker herself/himself. Furthermore, this interaction shows the intricate relationship between creativity and societal change, for the introduction of Islamic visual practices brought with it new ways for indigenous African to express not only their beliefs but also a more diverse range of patrons and audiences.
It would be shortsighted to see Islamicization as contributing to the death of indigenous African institutions; moreover, to do so would result in a failure to understand both African cultures as well as Islam. The narratives that follow are intended to give a brief overview of Islam in Africa, and, through using mosques as illustrations, the ways in which this relationship has enriched both African cultures and questioned ingrained definitions of Islamic artistic expression as well.
Islam entered Africa shortly after its inception in the seventh century AD. After the death of Muhammad, the rasul, or "messenger," and prophet of Islam, in 632, the first caliph ("deputy of the prophet") of Islam, Abu Bakr, ambitiously undertook a series of military conquests to spread the new faith across the world. Although he died two years later, his nephew, Umar, continued the ambitious program. In 636, the Muslims occupied Jerusalem, Damascus, and Antioch; in 651, they had conquered all of Persia. But they also moved west into Africa, for Arabic culture saw itself as continuous not only with Middle Eastern culture, but with northern African culture as well. In 646, the Muslims conquered Egypt and quickly spread across northern Africa. From northern Africa, they invaded Spain in 711. Look at the dates: Islam is founded in 610 when Muhammed has the first of his revelations in the caves above the city of Qumran. In 711, one hundred years later, the Muslims conquered the Middle East, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, northern Africa, and had just entered Europe. The initial spread of Islam is the single most dramatic cultural change in the history of the world, and it loomed large in the subsequent history of African civilizations.
The largest African cities and kingdoms were located in the Sahel, a desert and savannah region south of the Sahara. After 750 AD, these cities and kingdoms arose because they served as waystations and terminus points for the trade routes across northern Africa. The northern Africans, however, were Muslim; one particular people, the Berbers, were a north African people who were fervently Muslim. The Berbers and their wars of conversion figure very large in the history of the Sahelian kingdoms; by the 1300's, these large kingdoms became Islamic and, more importantly, centers of Islamic learning.
Beyond religion, there are several important cultural practices that the Arabic culture of Islam gave to Africa. The first is literacy. Egypt and the Nilotic kingdoms of the Kushites and the Nubians had long traditions of writing, and the Ethiopians had acquired it through their ties to the Semitic peoples of southern Arabia. But these writing systems did not spread throughout Africa. Islam, however, as a religion of the book, spread writing and literacy everywhere it went. Many Africans dealt with two languages: their native language and Arabic, which was the language of texts. However, this gradually changed as Africans began using the Arabic alphabet to write their own languages. To this date, Arabic script is one of the most common scripts for writing African languages.
With literacy, the Arabs brought formal educational systems. In north Africa and the Sahel, these systems and institutions would produce a great flowering of African thought and science. In fact, the city of Timbuctu had perhaps the greatest university in the world.
Islam also brought social fragmentation. As the faith spread throughout Africa, political authority of established African institutions and kingdoms began to collapse under the burden, particularly when groups of Muslims declared holy war, or jihad, against pagan social groups.
July 11, 2001
The Black Church has historically been a source of hope and strength for the African American community. In 1990, the late professor, C. Eric. Lincoln co-authored, The Black Church in the African American Experience with Lawrence H. Mamiya. They described the, "seven major historic black denominations: the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church; the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church; the National Baptist Convention, USA., Incorporated (NBC); the National Baptist Convention of America, Unincorporated (NBCA); the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC); and the Church of God in Christ (COGIC)," as comprising "the black Church."
Yet it is known that blacks were also members of predominantly white denominations such as the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, United Methodist and Roman Catholic churches. However, Lincoln and Mamiya chose to confine 'the black Church,' to "those independent, historic, and totally black controlled denominations, which were founded after the Free African Society of 1787 and which constituted the core of black Christians."
Since the publication of the Lincoln and Mamiya book, two new black denominations have developed: The National Missionary Baptist Convention (NMBC) and the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF). The FGBCF does not refer to itself as a denomination.
C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamrya, represents ten years of exhaustive field work, data gathering, historical reconstruction, and sociological analysis by this team of sociologists and their associates. Simply put, their primary task is to present as authentIc and objective profile of the Black Church and black religion as we found to be possible.
Lincoln and Mamiya base their analysis on data drawn from over 2,100 churchh and 1,8oo clergy from across the United States. They focus on seven historically black denominations—African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episco\Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal, National Baptist Convention, USA, Natio~ Baptist Convention of America, Progressive National Baptist Convention, and the Church of God in Christ (Pentecostal)—noting that reliable estimates place more than eighty percent of all Blacks who claim some religious affiliation in one of these groups.
The first chapter of the book examines various sociological interpretations of the black religious experience. The authors opt for what they call dialectical model which, consistent with their plea for balance, posits the Black Church as an institution that is involved in a constant series of tensions,. constantly shifting between the polarities in historical time. The dialectical poles include priestly/prophetic, other-worldly/this-worldly, communal/priwatistic, and resistance/accommodation, the latter referring to strategies for racial justice. Throughout the book, the authors rehearse these themes in such areas as the Black Church and politics, black religion and economic development, and the impact of nationalism and the civil rights movement on the Black Church.
The authors also devote separate chapters to such ministry issues as youth in the church, women in ministry, and the role of music in black churches. Helpful chapters that break out and analyze the data according to rural and urban locations also help to give a fuller reading to the complexity of black church life. I was surprised and challenged by the breadth of information concerning social programs in urban churches, new insights into the relationship between clergy education and ministerial performance, stereotype-smashing data on the inadequate remuneration of parish clergy, and candid assessments of denominationalism as a black phenomenon. The heightening tension surrounding the ordination of women is explored with some care using survey data of attitudes toward women in ministry gathered from clergy and laity, male and female, combined with assessment of how cultural patterns and power relationships inform these attitudes. The chapter on youth ministry confirms the long held intuition concerning the churches’ role in influencing poor black young people, but with solid data buttressed with representative success stories that give flesh and structure to this sentiment.
The concluding chapter of the book reflects the spirit of sociological research that motivated and dominated the careers of earlier twentieth-century thinkers such as W. E. B. DuBois, E. Franklin Frazier, and Charles Spurgeon Johnson, i.e., that all sociological study should yield conclusions that inform the development of practical policy and programs for the betterment of the communities studied.
Lincoln and Mamiya have spent their entire professional careers studying the religion of Black Americans. Trained in both iheology and sociology, they bring to their subject matter objective rigor and religious sensitivity. Further, they provide much helpful historical background and relate their findings to the whole sphere of contemporary research on the Black churches. I am confident that all who read the book will delight in its readable style. Clearly, the authors intend for it to be used widely by scholars, clergy, lay leaders, and all who might be concerned with the institutional life of the Black community.
Happily, the study generates impressive new data relative to subjects not previously studied sociologically, such as the rapid growth of the Church of God in Christ, analyses of various issues pertaining to women and youth, and the impact of the Black theology movement on ~. the Black churches, to mention only a few. The study also provides important and unique comparative analyses between ruial and urban churches. Further, it comprises a splendid analysis of the various forms of “holistic” ministry within the Black churches, ministries that demonstrate their deep sense of responsibility in addressing major~ societal problems that threaten the well-being of a disproportionate. number of African Americans. Accordingly, the authors discuss T numerous excellent examples of social ministry as indicators of the church’s continuation of a tradition of holistic ministry in the Black community and their potentiality for greater effectiveness.
The authors do not shy away from discussing specific problems within the internal life of the churches, such as the negative attitudes of many male clergy concerning the ordination of women, the deficiencies of educational programs in the Black churches aimed at, addressing the growing lack of self-esteem among young people, and the low percentage of professionally trained Black clergy.
July 12, 2001
July 16, 2001
RIGHTEOUS DISCONTENT:The Women's Movement
in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920
EVELYN BROOKS HIGGINBOTHAM
Ms. Higginbotham moves beyond the dichotomous thinking that has often short-circuited our attempts to understand the situation of black women...An important, sophisticated, and richly instructive book. Higginbotham's book is populated with fascinating and accomplished women...Her research is impeccable and her work both ambitious and important. Righteous Discontent contributes significantly to the still under appreciated history of the black church in America. Higginbotham has pioneered a study of a long-neglected component of the African-American experience. This book is a powerful and compelling story of the religious life of African-American women and their resistance to racism and sexism. Through Higginbotham's work, the voices of African-American women, which have remained silent too long, emerge distinct and bold."
July 17, 2001 and July 18, 2001
After reading RIGHTEOUS DISCONTENT: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920, I began thinking about what other black women thought.
Black women make up more than half of the population in the black community and 75% of the Black Church. Yet, sadly that their experiences are not reflected in what we know as Black Theology today. Although the emergence of a feminist consciousness has made Black male theologians more sensitive to the contributions of noted Black women, the contributions of these women and countless of other women who labor in the Black church remain silent.
How long will men from oppressed communities continue to remain indifferent to the special oppression of their sisters?
few Black men including theologians, preachers and seminary students truly care about the pain they inflict upon their sisters with their sexist behavior. If Black men are sincere when they say they love their Black sisters then they will be willing to break the silence and hear the cries of the black woman’s pain and to experience with them their physical as well as the physical suffering.
The Black church is one of the most sexist institutions in the Black community and while Black male ministers support Biblical passages that reject slavery and obedience to their masters they fail to take that stance with reference to Paul’s comments about women. They are more inclined to accept those passage when they refer to women and their submission.
Frances Beale speaks from the standpoint of the black woman being the victim of double jeopardy. She relates how the capitalistic system of America purports to destroy the humanity of all people and particularly black people.
Capitalism created situations where the Black man could not find employment and then manipulated and exploited the Black woman by making her the sole breadwinner of the family which led to psychological problems of both and contributed to the turmoil found in the Black family structure. Frances Beale states that neither the Black man nor the Black woman understood these principalities working against them.
Frances Beale discredits the Black males claim that feminism is a white woman’s issue and that capitalism works to the disadvantage of both women and Black people, therefore it is necessary that these two groups work together towards a liberation of all oppressed people in the world.
Theressa Hoover contends that to be a woman, black and active in religious institutions in America is to labor under triple jeopardy. This is evident where black women are confronted with the inequity of being black, a woman and having responsibility of a dedication to the church. Hoovers states that despite the debates going on in religious institutions concerning women, their role, their access to privileges and responsibilities in the priestly hierarchy, and their representation in decision-making places, the black woman remains invisible.
Hoover calls for the black churchwoman to challenge her sisters in other denominations and the clerical male hierarchy in her own. The black woman has been the most oppressed and the least vocal – she has given the most and gotten the least. As Hoover puts it her foresight, ingenuity and “stick-to-itiveness,” has kept many black churches open, many black preachers fed, and many parsonages livable.
It has been the strength and faith of the black woman that has enable the black church to survive in the midst of oppression and economic enslavement. Black women must continue to work within the walls of the church, challenging male theologians and continuing push outward so that the black church can truly serve the black community. The black woman must be freed from the triple barrier of sex, race, and church into a community of believers.
Pauli Murray speaks to a comparative view of Black Theology and Feminist Theology. She describes the task of liberation theology and the emergence of the parallel movements for black liberation and women’s liberation in the United States. Her essay examines the relationship between the two theologies, their common perspectives, the points of tension and the potential for both movements as effective forces within the context of the Christian message.
She describes the focus of black theology as that of the black experience under white racism and feminist theology being concerned with women against male-chauvinist structures of society.
liberation theology can be faithful it must first listen to the voices coming forward from the perspective of the Black woman, who in Jacquelyn Grant’s words are perhaps the most oppressed of the oppressed. Concerned with how the experience of the Black woman questions certain assumptions in liberation theology in general and black theology in particular. The purpose of this article by Grant is to look critically at Black Theology from the black woman’s perspective and determine the adequacy of its conception of liberation for the total Black community. Grant asks with the question “Where are Black women in Black Theology? And she is emphatic that they are indeed invisible and states we need to know why this is the case.
Grant says that a dualism has arisen between black men and black women which makes it not difficult to see why Black women are invisible in Black theology. Black men have deemed it proper to speak for the entire black community, male and female. She states that in a sense the Black man’s acceptance of the patriarchal model is logical and expected since black male slaves were unable to reap the benefits of patriarchy and after emancipation they were not given the opportunity of protecting and providing for Black women and children. It seems only natural that after emancipation these black viewed it as primary importance to reclaim their property – their women and children – their natural right to the man’s world. But Grant expresses this is only natural and logical if one accepts the terms and values of patriarch – the concept of male control and supremacy.
Grant raises another important question dealing with the invisibility of black women in Black theology. If Black men have accepted these patriarchal structures, is there any reason to believe that they would be any more liberating of Black women than White theology was for white women? It would seem natural that in view of the oppression that blacks have suffered that black men would be particularly sensitive to the oppression of others.
Kathern Cleaver says the fact that when leadership was given to women, sexism was right around the corner.
Alice Walker founder of the term womanist. – story of our mothers and grandmothers and how their creativity though silent and to some non-existent provides the creative sparks for black women today. Black women must examine their own identities and lives that have come out of the living creativity that our great grandmothers were not even aware existed within them. How do you feel about Sexism in the Black Church today? Does it truly exist? If so what can be done by Black Males about the invisibility of their black sisters?
Womanist theology is an emergent voice of African American Christian women in the United States. Employing Alice Walker's definition of womanism in her text In Search of Our Mothers' Garden, black women in America are calling into question their suppressed role in the African American church, the community, the family, and the larger society. But womanist religious reflection is more than mere deconstruction. It is, more importantly, the empowering assertion of the black woman's voice. To examine that voice,
Thoughts on Womanist Theology in the USA
• Womanist theology is critical reflection upon black women's place in the world that God has created and takes seriously black women's experience as human beings who are made in the image of God.
• Womanist theology's goals are to interrogate the social construction of black womanhood in
• Womanist theology engages the macro-structural and the micro-structural issues that affect black women's lives and, since it is a theology of complete inclusivity, the lives of all black people.
• Womanist theology assumes a liberatory perspective so that African American women can live emboldened lives within the African American community and within the larger society. Such a new social relationship includes adequate food, shelter, clothing -- and minds which are free from worries so that there can be space for creative modalities.
• Womanist theology draws on sources that range from traditional church doctrines, African American fiction and poetry, nineteenth-century black women leaders, poor and working class black women in holiness churches, and African American women under slavery. In addition, other vital sources.
• Womanist theology, grasps the crucial connection between African American women and the plight, survival, and struggle of women of color throughout the world.
• Womanist theology intentionally pursues and engages the cultural contexts of women who are part of the African Diaspora.
• Womanist theology takes seriously the importance of understanding the "languages" of black women.
• articulations are penned in the annals of the academy. Womanist theology showcases the overlooked styles and contributions of all black women whether they are poor, and perhaps illiterate, or economically advantaged.
• Womanists bring forth the legacy of our grandmamas and great grandmamas and carry their notions in the embodiment of life that we create daily.
• Womanist theology concurs with black theology and feminist theology on the necessity of engaging race and gender in theological conversation.
• Womanist theologians bring to the center the experience and knowledge of those marginalized by a complex layering and overlapping by race, gender, and class experiences of all groups, inclusive of those with privilege and power.
Names associated with the emergence of womanist theology in the U.S.A. are Katie Cannon, Emilie Townes, Jacqueline Grant, Delores Williams, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, Kelly Brown Douglas, Renita Weems, Shawn Copeland, Clarice Martin, Francis Wood, Karen Baker-Fletcher, Jamie Phelps, Marcia Riggs, and Cheryl Kirk-Duggan.
Bibliography
Andersen, Margaret L., and Patricia Hill Collins, eds. Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1992.
Cabral, Amilcar. Return to the Source. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973.
Hooks, Bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston: South End Press, 1988.
Marcus, George E., and M. Fischer. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Rosaldo, Renato. Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.
Thornton, R. "Culture." In South African Keywords, ed. E. Boonzaier and E. Sharp. Cape Town: David Philip, 1988, pp. 17-28.
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
July 19, 2001
In the North, there was no fear of violence from the blacks so the process of establishing exclusive white and black churches proceeded rapidly. The writer has already outlined some events leading to the founding of the first black denomination, the A.M.E. Church in 1816. Peter Williams, a friend of Bishop Alien, separated from a Methodist church with 800 members in New York City in June, 1821, because the whites treated the black Christians poorly. His church was called the A. M.E. Zion after the congregation he started.
The Western Colored Baptist convention was formed in 1853 because of both racial discrimination and desire for control of the churches by black members. It became the primary organization of Northern black Baptists. During this time many white Baptists opposed giving any part to black Baptists in running the Northern Baptist Home Missionary Society. This was the main missionary effort of all Baptist churches. At first the Home Missionary Society did accept contributions from black churches. In the early 1860s, it decided to refuse even the money of the black fellow Baptists. In 1869 the black Baptists established their own missionary society.
The Methodists and Presbyterians admitted and ordained black clergy in this period to serve the growing number of black churches in their denominations. In New York City the Episcopal Church refused regular status to a qualified applicant to General Theological Seminary in 1836. By 1870 with the establishment of 'the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church by a black withdrawal from the Northern Methodists, the churches were almost totally segregated between denominations and within the while denominations.
July 20, 2001
E. Franklin Frazier, black sociologist and historian, gives four reasons for the popularity of churches among the slaves.
• The preachers preached of conditions in the next world that were attractive to oppressed slaves and to others.
• The sermons and the emotional responses expected in the churches were extremely helpful as outlets of suppressed and repressed feelings, especially anger, guilt, and pride.
• The services provided a sense of group solidarity to people whose regional and family ties had been shattered.
• Whites joining these two denominations in increasing numbers, made some blacks proud that they shared a faith with their masters.
Wilmore cites evidence that the African attitudes of man’s basic union with Nature and the involvement of the mind, the emotions, and the body in religion were beneficial carryovers which influenced the blacks towards certain types of Christianity. Regardless of the reason, the Methodist and the Baptist church grew to their present status of being the largest two Protestant denominations for black people by the early 1800's.
Permanent Effect on Black Churches
Writers of black church history agree in some form that the basic approaches of black people to religion were formed during the slave era. Three basic attitudes toward religion are reported by the writers. Franklin Frazier and Joseph Washington contend that during this period the black churches were molded into perversions of Christianity that made the blacks willing to be treated the way that they were. Gayraud Wilmore and Kyle Haselden stress that much of what pleased the whites was really motivated by extreme opposition to slavery and designed to cope with it in the only means possible in a repressive society.
As mentioned before, Wilmore emphasizes characteristics of slave religion which Frazier tends to de-emphasize. Wilrnore also contends that many of these characteristics were adaptations from African religions that were superior in many ways to the Christianity of the whites. The basic approach of slave religion, according to Wilmore, was the fusion of a religious affirmation of both the harshness of life and the joyous sense of God's presence amidst all of life, with a radical this-worldly interest in action against slavery and oppression. He describes this as religion “ .suffused with a sublimated outrage • balanced with patient cheerfulness and boundless confidence in the ultimate justice of God. "
Wilmore contends that African religions as well as Christianity served as the religious foundation for both the joyous other worldly and the dedicated, secular thrusts of slave religion. Wilmore argues that the slaves had a special approach to life from the African religions that was beneficial in helping the slaves survive in dehumanizing conditions. He cites as evidence that many reports of religious dreams, visions, trances, or voices heard in worship services resembled forms handed down for generations.
He also cites the continued confidence of black Christians (who discover that their worship is unlike what is prescribed by white churches or even the Bible) in their forms of religious activity as related evidence. He sees the willingness of slaves to lie for each other when sins were committed against their masters as connected to the extreme togetherness felt by African believers. Also he says the slaves could express blatant sensuality and even humor in their religion (seeming to mimic what the whites expected of them). He says that this was partly the result of the African view of connection of all of life including the sensual aspects of life with worship and gratitude to God.
July 23, 2001
Christianity became alive as slaves began to combine their African religious beliefs with Christian beliefs in order to make up what is called slave religion. At the beginning, between 1619 and the early 1700’s, slave owners were not really trying to convert their slavesi nto Christians. Then, slave owners began to have different thoughts between each other as well. Some believed that slaves were more than inferior so this meant that they should try to acquire Christian redemption. Others believed that converting slaves into Christians would cause many problems because they could start thinking that they were equal to whites since they were sharing the same beliefs. To them, a converted slave would become lazy or even resistant to their white masters.
This society was fairly effective but it was not until the Great Awakenings (1740 and the early 1800’s) that black slaves began to turn towards Christianity in large numbers. Preachers that were related with the Great Awakening emphasized conversion of the heart, encouraged overjoyed body expressions, and required a simple confession of Jesus Christ’s lordship. These ideas were obviously accepted by slaves because they converted throughout the South, but there were some that still resisted some of the theology and religious practices of the Great Awakenings. White preachers taught the slaves that they had to obey their masters as a sign of being faithful to God. In the other hand, white churches still thought that slaves were not equal because they held segregated religious services and controlled the free worship by slaves. Plantation owners went one step further as they established segregated seating by placing the slaves in the rear, in the balcony, or even outside the church windows.
Slaves prayed secretly to God as their only master and asked for them to be liberated from their owners. They reinterpreted Christianity by adding some of their African religion. Slaves identified themselves with the Old Testament Hebrew slaves as they were liberated by God. If God was able to liberate the Hebrew slaves that meant that if the slaves would pray enough to him; the same thing could take place for them. To them, faith was now a belief in and commitment to a God that helped the poor and judged the arrogant and the strong, their owners. Now, God instead of the plantation owner was the actual master of the slaves.
Slaves believed that if God had sided against religious and political powers in the Bible, then he could also help them become free. They believed that Jesus was powerful enough to do anything.
Through their arrangement of God and Jesus, slaves were able to obtain a new meaning in their everyday life. They created things like "discourse of solidarity" in which one slave would never give information about another and even went to the extreme of religious resistance. Rebellion was now taking place. "Invisible Institution" was now clearly shown as slaves were conducting secret worship and prayer far away from the eyes of their masters.
They would meet in the woods where they would get ready to receive a visit from the spirit who made them sing, pray, preach, shout, and enjoy their own free religious space in such an enthusiastic manner. In the Invisible Institution slaves learned things as oratorical skill and started to become leaders. Some received food and clothing but also counseling in order to keep in the right stage of mind.
In 1830’s during the religious awakening in the South the slave owners were now bringing the Gospel to the quarters and this served as social control and as a way to convert the slaves. By 1860, about 15 percent of the slaves were members of either the Baptist or Methodist church. There they heard the same sermons, had the same discipline, and shared the communion table with whites. In the other hand, slaves still did not only follow these formal proceedings. Slaves would still listen to their own black preachers and they would also try to translate the Bible in a way in which it showed that they were God’s chosen people and that Judgment Day would castigate their masters. Slaves turned Christianity into their own terms. If their masters did not follow common Christian behavior then the slaves felt a great superiority over their masters.
Now, in the lower Gulf area, around Louisiana, some slaves followed VOODOO. In other places where slaves were imported illegally from Africa, they practiced Islam. Others did not have a religion at all.
July 25, 2001
The African Methodist Episcopal Church was started in 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by a group of disinherited Americans whose forefathers came from Africa. The leader of this group was a 27 year old "African," Richard Allen. At that time the word "African" was used to designate those persons whom we now call African American.
The movement to organize a church separated from the white peoples' church was started in response to the "Africans" need for opportunities for self-expression and fuller involvement in the service of the worship of God, and in society as a whole. It was the answer to a cry for social recognition as human beings, and the means through which a group of people started on a program which gave them a growing sense of dignity and self-respect.
To foster this program Richard Allen considered it important to conduct night school classes in which his people could learn how to help themselves. Out of these night school classes has come the church's philosophy of education with its strong emphasis upon self-help. The general emphasis has not been significantly changed until this day. In addtion to the educational program of the local church, the A.M.E. Church operates eleven institutions of higher education.
Most religious groups had their origin in some theological, doctrinal, or ideological dispute or concern. But the A.M.E. Church originated as a protest against the inhumane treatment which the helpless people of African descent were forced to accept from the white people belonging to the St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelpha, Pennsylvania. This fact says to us that the organization of the A.M.E. Church was the result of racial discrimination rather than of any theological or doctrinal concern.
The A.M.E. Church is a member of the family of Methodist Churches. Its founder and first active bishop, Richard Allen, felt that no religious sect or denomination would suit the capacity of his people as well as did Methodism with its emphasis upon the plain and simple gospel which the unlearned could understand, and its orderly system of rules and regulations which the underdeveloped needed. He felt that Methodism had what the "African" needed to encourage him to make progress, to worship God freely, and to fill every office for which he had the capability.
The "Africans" who started the A.M.E. Church were very poor and most of them could not read nor write. Yet, under the leadership of Richard Allen, they managed to buy an old blacksmith shop, and to move it to a lot at the corner of Sixth and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they organized Bethel A.M.E. Church (also called Mother Bethel) which stands today as one of the historic shrines of Philadelphia.
In time other African American churches were started in Baltimore, Maryland; Salem, New Jersey; Attlesboro, Pennsylvania; Wilmington, Delaware and other places in the United States. In the year 1816 these churches came together and formed the A.M.E. Church. Richard Allen was elected to serve as the first active bishop.
July 26, 2001
Sojourner Truth fought for the desegregation of public transportation in Washington, DC during the Civil War. She refused to face the indignities of Jim Crow segregation on street cars and had the Jim Crow car removed from the Washington D. C. system. Sojourner Truth brought a local street to a standstill when a driver refused her passage. With the support of the crowd she forced the driver to carry her. During her legendary life, she challenged injustice wherever she saw it. She was an abolitionist, women's rights activist and preacher.
Born into slavery (as Isabella Baumfree) in upstate New York, Sojourner Truth obtained her freedom and moved to New York City. There she began to work with organizations designed to assist women. She later became a traveling preacher and quickly developed a reputation as a powerful speaker. A turning point in her life occurred when she visited the Northhampton Association in Massachusetts. The members of this association included many of the leading abolitionists and women's rights activists of her time. Among these people Sojourner Truth discussed issues of the day and as a result of these discussions became one of the first people in the country to link the oppression of black slaves with the oppression of women.
As a speaker, Sojourner Truth became known for her quick wit and powerful presence. She would never be intimidated. Because of her powerful speaking ability, independent spirit and her six foot frame, she was often accused of being a man. She ended that in Silver Lake, Indiana when she exposed her breast to the audience that accused her.
Sojourner Truth lived a long and productive life. She spoke before Congress and two presidents. Sojourner Truth is best remembered for a speech she gave at a women's rights conference where she noticed that no one was addressing the rights of Black women. Her address reads in part: "Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped over carriages, and lifted ober dicthes and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober muddpuddles, or bigs me any best place. And ain't I a woman? Look at me Looka at me arm. I have ploughes and planted and gathered into barns, and no mand could head me! And ain't I a woman."
As I read, I found some titles/resources I would like to revisit.
Austin, Allan D. African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Baer, Hans A., and Singer, Merrill. African-American Religion in the Twentieth Century: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992.
Brown, Karen McCarthy. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Frazier, E. Franklin.The Negro Church in America. New York: Schocken Books, 1964.
Fulop, Timothy E., and Raboteau, Albert J., eds. African-American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and Culture. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Gardell, Mattias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. C. Eric Lincoln Series on the Black Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.
Jacobs, Claude F., and Kaslow, Andrew J. The Spiritual Churches of New Orleans: Origins, Beliefs, and Rituals of an African-American Religion. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.
Johnson, Paul E., ed. African-American Christianity: Essays in History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Levine, Lawrence W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Lincoln, C. Eric, and Mamiya, Lawrence H. The Black Church in the African American Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990.
Long, Charles H. Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986.
Marsh, Clifton E. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Transition from Separatism to Islam, 1930 -- 1980. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Murphy, Joseph M. Santeria. An African Religion in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.
Pitts, Walter F., Jr. 0 Ship of Zion: The Afro-Baptist Ritual in the African Diaspora. Religion in America Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Raboteau, Albert J. A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.
_____. Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Ray, Benjamin C. African Religions: Symbol, Ritual, and Community. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976.
Sanders, Cheryl J. Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture. Religion in America Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Random House, 1983.
Watts, Jill. God, Harlem U.S.A.; The Father Divine Story. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro-American People. 2d ed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983.
Wardell J. Payne, Directory of African American Religious Bodies: A Compendium by the Howard University School of Divinity (Washington, DC: Howard University Press), 1995.