History Of The African American Church
Alan L. Joplin
History Of The African American Church
It is probably impossible to accurately reconstruct the types of religious ideas and practices brought to America from Africa. There is a real disagreement among historians, if any of the culture and religion of Africa survived the Atlantic crossing. One such group includes the late black sociologist-historian, E. Franklin Frazier, who insists “the black people in America were without either culture or organized religion when they came to America”. Dr. Gayraud S. Wilmore, Presbyterian Church leader, was influenced by cultural anthropologists such as Melville Herskovits to believe that the black church in America was at least is partly based on African religions. There is documented evidence, that some early black preachers were descends of conjurers and medicine men from Africa. The tragic dislocation that the African experienced in their transition to slavery argues the view of Dr. Frazier.
Religion permeates the African from cradle to grave. Traditional religion is part of the African's ethos and an understanding of it goes hand in hand with Christian evangelization.
Without trying to sound too simplistic, it can be argued that Slave and African religions are built on three major pillars: faith, morality and worship. Religion deals with belief in some higher power or being who is accepted as having some influence on devotees.
These three elements common to all religions, are not in any way linked to a written word. A religion is not a religion because its tenets are written down. On the contrary, the tenets are written down because it is already a religion. To, as it were, insist on the book as the evidence of religion or, worse still, classify religion as great or small on the basis of scripture would appear to be wrong. Religions with scripture make sure that their teachings are not distorted, and that they are obeyed. This does not make them, therefore, superior to others.
ANCESTOR WORSHIP
A phrase used to describe African traditional religion is ancestor-worship. Ancestors form part of the religious thought of the African. But the existence and the veneration of Saints too form part of the thinking of Christians.
No Christian would accept it if Christianity were termed "Saint worship". The reason would not simply be that there are much more important aspects to Christianity than the Saints. The protestation would be justified on the grounds that indeed Saints are not worshipped, Saints are not deified, Saints are not the ultimate object of our petition and praise or adoration. We honor Saints as having lived our lives and being worthy of emulation and we pass our petitions through them to the Almighty God.
Some religious practices of Black Christians in America are strikingly similar to African customs in religion. When you add to this the evidence that some Slaves were first Roman Catholics in the West Indies or Mohammedans converted by Moslem slave traders, the picture is even more complicated.
The Africans experienced highly developed forms of religion according to Dr. Wilmore. They believed in a Supreme Being who was related to all things. They did not worship Nature, but they used heavenly bodies and nature as a representation of a living, pulsating environment through which Man was related to the Supreme Being. African religion describe the Supreme Being in similar terms to the Christian concept of God as Creator, Judge and Redeemer.
An examination of African traditional religion reveals certain concepts of God that stand out clearly today. We begin with the very concept of God. In Judaism, we are told that there is no God apart from Yahweh. So unique is Yahweh that no other God is called Yahweh.
He is unique, incomparable, superlatively high, almighty. There is no god whatsoever apart from Yahweh. All idols are the work of human beings and those who follow them are foolish. They are as useless as their idols. This is also the thinking of Muslims. In their case, the concept of God is clearly expressed in the first pillar of their religion. " There is no god but God". In any African language, we find exactly the same situation. God has a name and there is no question of qualifying that name to apply to another being. The Supreme Being in Africa enjoys a status immeasurably higher than any other being's. He is the Creator of all other beings.
WHOLENESS
Black Christians today, believed in wholeness is an idea that is highly theological. Jesus Christ was man and God at the same time. That one person had the nature of God and the nature of man, He was God made visible and he was man, the victim of our sin. Yet he did not draw a rigid dichotomy between his God-head and his humanity, He was at the same time both. He was whole, not truncated. This concept of wholeness is found very clearly in African traditional religion.
A human person is a composite of spirit and body and must be treated as such. If he were body alone, he would be a animal. If man was only spirit, he would be an angel. He is a human being precisely because of the inseparable combination of body and spirit. Hence disease does not affect the body alone, it has to do with the spirit also.
Religion is part of life. It permeates a person's life from cradle to grave. A person is born into a religious atmosphere and from his conception to his death, there are major religious rituals to mark the major turning points of his existence.
The interaction or dialogue between modern Christianity and African traditional religion, therefore, should be centered on the areas where the enrichment of Christianity. When this encounter takes place then the African culture itself will be further elevated to a plane higher than where it has reached. The exercise amounts to helping one's helper. Suffering, for African traditional religion, is an evil. It is the cause of personal sin or some other people's wickedness.
The love of the neighbor is entirely acceptable to African traditional religion as in modern black Christianity.
Slave Religion
Slave religion is the beliefs, religious faith, and practices of Africans brought to the New World beginning in 1619 and that African Americans kept until they were emancipated. Africans believe that there is a high god, who created all things and they believe on lesser gods who follow the high god. Having these lesser gods meant that they would pray to different gods when dealing with rain, fertility, and crops. They also believed that a status with the lesser gods was occupied by the spirits of their ancestors. Africans thought that their ancestors were the living dead because they were both close to the living as well as the ultimate beings. The purpose of them living was to honor the ancestors, recognize the lesser gods, and give all power and admiration to the high God. Examples of similar African Traditional And Black Christian Beliefs are:
• The world is full of supernatural forces (demons) and powers. For Africans the sprits of departed ancestors, were associated with nature and were among these supernatural forces and powers. They believe when these powers were united with the powers of the Supreme Being, and used by medicine men who acted as priests, counselors and doctors, they were able to work beneficial or harmful magic among the people with the use of amulets and herbs.
• Like many other cultures certain aspects of communal, social and biological existence had a religious context for African and Black Christians these were celebrated in numerous rites.. Religious invocation, offerings, dances and chants played a part in birth rites, marriages, deaths and the customary life cycles in for example the coming of age and acquisition of status or honor.
• Respect for sacredness of life. Life is held to be sacred. To give birth to a child is on the part of both the man and the woman. Life must be given, life must be lived, life is to be enjoyed, life is to be whole, life is to be honorable, life is to be long and peaceful. Therefore, in the true setting of the willful abortion or even contraception was a rarity.
• Belief and practices of spiritual possession. Belief in the pervasion of reality by spirits made them feel that the human spirit must be free from internal and external restraint that was from God. Dr. Wilmore sees this experience of freedom and possession by God as similar to the possession by the Holy Spirit especially in terms of the wild emotional abandonment associated with both experiences.
• Emphasizes on folkways and styles of life that differentiate various Black churches/sects/denominations both from each other and from the White churches. Tribeal affiliation.
• The Pentecostal Church leaning towards faith-healing, others have been successful due to their emphasis on liturgical ceremonies and rites. Spirit power has also made considerable conversions in the population.
• The concept of the Supreme Being should make it clear that the word Polytheism should not be used to describe African traditional religion or Black Christian Beliefs. Polytheism, in the classical sense, connotes a situation where two or more divinities are believed to hold an equal status. This is not the case with African traditional and Black Christianity where the Supreme Being is the creator of all other divinities and does not form part of the pantheon of divinities but holds a position unique to himself.
• Promotes humanity. It deals in a pragmatic way with human existence. In that religion, we are each other's keeper.
• It is not a fashion. Neither is it like clothes that you wear today and change or discard tomorrow. Religion is like your skin. You take it wherever you go. Hence religion is not taught or learned as a classroom subject. Religion is picked up through imitation, observation, participation in religious rites and just being an African or American .
• Promotes human values such as hospitality, kindness, love, unity, gratitude, hard work and, above all, self-help. It promotes fidelity in human relationships. It moulds and shapes the characters of human persons.
• Insists on faithfulness as a concrete indication of love: faithfulness to one's religious duties, authority, relations, civic obligations, etc
• Are integral aspect of their storytelling traditions and also contain descriptions of the basic archetypes, arranged in identifiable structures.
• Is about fidelity and conviction, not about interpretation and analysis of ideas. African traditional religion has a message for us here. Its lack of scripture has not, in any way, meant lack of effectiveness. Religion is to be practiced not just to be talked about. This, of course, does not mean that doctrine and ideology are useless. But doctrine need not be doctrine because it is written, and doctrine devoid of practice is meaningless.
It was also believed that African religion promoted the belief in witchcraft and encouraged people to worship their ancestors instead of worshiping God. African religion does not encourage belief in witchcraft it merely accepts the fact that witches as we believe in demons.
Witches are regarded as sinners and it is the duty of religious leaders to talk about witchcraft and to attempt to discourage its practice. African religion does not encourage people to venerate their ancestors instead of worshiping; members of African religion talk to their ancestors but worship God.
African religion says, God is for everyone everywhere. God takes very little interest in the day-to-day affairs of individuals. God is not concerned with purely personal affairs but with matters of national and international importance. The ancestral spirits, Christian Saints on the other hand, are concerned with the day-to-day affairs of their descendants. They are the intermediaries between the living and God. People pray to God through their ancestors just as we do through ours.
Resources
Frazier, E. Franklin. 1964. The Negro Church in America. New York: Schocken Books.
Haselden, Kyle & Martin E. Marty (Eds) What's ahead for the churches? A report from the Christian Century
Kyle Haselden. Racial problem in Christian Perspective. A Southern pastor's appraisal of the obligation and opportunity of the church
___________. Mandate For White Christians
Lincoln, C. Eric. 1999. "Introduction." In Mighty Like A River: The Black Church and Social Reform, au. Andrew Billingsley. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lincoln, C. Eric and Lawrence Mamiya. 1990. The Black Church in the African American Experience. Durham: Duke University Press.
Marx, Gary. 1967. Protest and Prejudice: A Study of Belief in the Black Community. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Myrdal, Gunnar. [1944] 1962. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
Joseph Washington. 1964. Black religion: the Negro and Christianity in the United States.
Wilmore, Gayraud. 1983. Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
Weatherford , Willis. American Churches and the Negro.
History Of The African American Church
It is probably impossible to accurately reconstruct the types of religious ideas and practices brought to America from Africa. There is a real disagreement among historians, if any of the culture and religion of Africa survived the Atlantic crossing. One such group includes the late black sociologist-historian, E. Franklin Frazier, who insists “the black people in America were without either culture or organized religion when they came to America”. Dr. Gayraud S. Wilmore, Presbyterian Church leader, was influenced by cultural anthropologists such as Melville Herskovits to believe that the black church in America was at least is partly based on African religions. There is documented evidence, that some early black preachers were descends of conjurers and medicine men from Africa. The tragic dislocation that the African experienced in their transition to slavery argues the view of Dr. Frazier.
Religion permeates the African from cradle to grave. Traditional religion is part of the African's ethos and an understanding of it goes hand in hand with Christian evangelization.
Without trying to sound too simplistic, it can be argued that Slave and African religions are built on three major pillars: faith, morality and worship. Religion deals with belief in some higher power or being who is accepted as having some influence on devotees.
These three elements common to all religions, are not in any way linked to a written word. A religion is not a religion because its tenets are written down. On the contrary, the tenets are written down because it is already a religion. To, as it were, insist on the book as the evidence of religion or, worse still, classify religion as great or small on the basis of scripture would appear to be wrong. Religions with scripture make sure that their teachings are not distorted, and that they are obeyed. This does not make them, therefore, superior to others.
ANCESTOR WORSHIP
A phrase used to describe African traditional religion is ancestor-worship. Ancestors form part of the religious thought of the African. But the existence and the veneration of Saints too form part of the thinking of Christians.
No Christian would accept it if Christianity were termed "Saint worship". The reason would not simply be that there are much more important aspects to Christianity than the Saints. The protestation would be justified on the grounds that indeed Saints are not worshipped, Saints are not deified, Saints are not the ultimate object of our petition and praise or adoration. We honor Saints as having lived our lives and being worthy of emulation and we pass our petitions through them to the Almighty God.
Some religious practices of Black Christians in America are strikingly similar to African customs in religion. When you add to this the evidence that some Slaves were first Roman Catholics in the West Indies or Mohammedans converted by Moslem slave traders, the picture is even more complicated.
The Africans experienced highly developed forms of religion according to Dr. Wilmore. They believed in a Supreme Being who was related to all things. They did not worship Nature, but they used heavenly bodies and nature as a representation of a living, pulsating environment through which Man was related to the Supreme Being. African religion describe the Supreme Being in similar terms to the Christian concept of God as Creator, Judge and Redeemer.
An examination of African traditional religion reveals certain concepts of God that stand out clearly today. We begin with the very concept of God. In Judaism, we are told that there is no God apart from Yahweh. So unique is Yahweh that no other God is called Yahweh.
He is unique, incomparable, superlatively high, almighty. There is no god whatsoever apart from Yahweh. All idols are the work of human beings and those who follow them are foolish. They are as useless as their idols. This is also the thinking of Muslims. In their case, the concept of God is clearly expressed in the first pillar of their religion. " There is no god but God". In any African language, we find exactly the same situation. God has a name and there is no question of qualifying that name to apply to another being. The Supreme Being in Africa enjoys a status immeasurably higher than any other being's. He is the Creator of all other beings.
WHOLENESS
Black Christians today, believed in wholeness is an idea that is highly theological. Jesus Christ was man and God at the same time. That one person had the nature of God and the nature of man, He was God made visible and he was man, the victim of our sin. Yet he did not draw a rigid dichotomy between his God-head and his humanity, He was at the same time both. He was whole, not truncated. This concept of wholeness is found very clearly in African traditional religion.
A human person is a composite of spirit and body and must be treated as such. If he were body alone, he would be a animal. If man was only spirit, he would be an angel. He is a human being precisely because of the inseparable combination of body and spirit. Hence disease does not affect the body alone, it has to do with the spirit also.
Religion is part of life. It permeates a person's life from cradle to grave. A person is born into a religious atmosphere and from his conception to his death, there are major religious rituals to mark the major turning points of his existence.
The interaction or dialogue between modern Christianity and African traditional religion, therefore, should be centered on the areas where the enrichment of Christianity. When this encounter takes place then the African culture itself will be further elevated to a plane higher than where it has reached. The exercise amounts to helping one's helper. Suffering, for African traditional religion, is an evil. It is the cause of personal sin or some other people's wickedness.
The love of the neighbor is entirely acceptable to African traditional religion as in modern black Christianity.
Slave Religion
Slave religion is the beliefs, religious faith, and practices of Africans brought to the New World beginning in 1619 and that African Americans kept until they were emancipated. Africans believe that there is a high god, who created all things and they believe on lesser gods who follow the high god. Having these lesser gods meant that they would pray to different gods when dealing with rain, fertility, and crops. They also believed that a status with the lesser gods was occupied by the spirits of their ancestors. Africans thought that their ancestors were the living dead because they were both close to the living as well as the ultimate beings. The purpose of them living was to honor the ancestors, recognize the lesser gods, and give all power and admiration to the high God. Examples of similar African Traditional And Black Christian Beliefs are:
• The world is full of supernatural forces (demons) and powers. For Africans the sprits of departed ancestors, were associated with nature and were among these supernatural forces and powers. They believe when these powers were united with the powers of the Supreme Being, and used by medicine men who acted as priests, counselors and doctors, they were able to work beneficial or harmful magic among the people with the use of amulets and herbs.
• Like many other cultures certain aspects of communal, social and biological existence had a religious context for African and Black Christians these were celebrated in numerous rites.. Religious invocation, offerings, dances and chants played a part in birth rites, marriages, deaths and the customary life cycles in for example the coming of age and acquisition of status or honor.
• Respect for sacredness of life. Life is held to be sacred. To give birth to a child is on the part of both the man and the woman. Life must be given, life must be lived, life is to be enjoyed, life is to be whole, life is to be honorable, life is to be long and peaceful. Therefore, in the true setting of the willful abortion or even contraception was a rarity.
• Belief and practices of spiritual possession. Belief in the pervasion of reality by spirits made them feel that the human spirit must be free from internal and external restraint that was from God. Dr. Wilmore sees this experience of freedom and possession by God as similar to the possession by the Holy Spirit especially in terms of the wild emotional abandonment associated with both experiences.
• Emphasizes on folkways and styles of life that differentiate various Black churches/sects/denominations both from each other and from the White churches. Tribeal affiliation.
• The Pentecostal Church leaning towards faith-healing, others have been successful due to their emphasis on liturgical ceremonies and rites. Spirit power has also made considerable conversions in the population.
• The concept of the Supreme Being should make it clear that the word Polytheism should not be used to describe African traditional religion or Black Christian Beliefs. Polytheism, in the classical sense, connotes a situation where two or more divinities are believed to hold an equal status. This is not the case with African traditional and Black Christianity where the Supreme Being is the creator of all other divinities and does not form part of the pantheon of divinities but holds a position unique to himself.
• Promotes humanity. It deals in a pragmatic way with human existence. In that religion, we are each other's keeper.
• It is not a fashion. Neither is it like clothes that you wear today and change or discard tomorrow. Religion is like your skin. You take it wherever you go. Hence religion is not taught or learned as a classroom subject. Religion is picked up through imitation, observation, participation in religious rites and just being an African or American .
• Promotes human values such as hospitality, kindness, love, unity, gratitude, hard work and, above all, self-help. It promotes fidelity in human relationships. It moulds and shapes the characters of human persons.
• Insists on faithfulness as a concrete indication of love: faithfulness to one's religious duties, authority, relations, civic obligations, etc
• Are integral aspect of their storytelling traditions and also contain descriptions of the basic archetypes, arranged in identifiable structures.
• Is about fidelity and conviction, not about interpretation and analysis of ideas. African traditional religion has a message for us here. Its lack of scripture has not, in any way, meant lack of effectiveness. Religion is to be practiced not just to be talked about. This, of course, does not mean that doctrine and ideology are useless. But doctrine need not be doctrine because it is written, and doctrine devoid of practice is meaningless.
It was also believed that African religion promoted the belief in witchcraft and encouraged people to worship their ancestors instead of worshiping God. African religion does not encourage belief in witchcraft it merely accepts the fact that witches as we believe in demons.
Witches are regarded as sinners and it is the duty of religious leaders to talk about witchcraft and to attempt to discourage its practice. African religion does not encourage people to venerate their ancestors instead of worshiping; members of African religion talk to their ancestors but worship God.
African religion says, God is for everyone everywhere. God takes very little interest in the day-to-day affairs of individuals. God is not concerned with purely personal affairs but with matters of national and international importance. The ancestral spirits, Christian Saints on the other hand, are concerned with the day-to-day affairs of their descendants. They are the intermediaries between the living and God. People pray to God through their ancestors just as we do through ours.
Resources
Frazier, E. Franklin. 1964. The Negro Church in America. New York: Schocken Books.
Haselden, Kyle & Martin E. Marty (Eds) What's ahead for the churches? A report from the Christian Century
Kyle Haselden. Racial problem in Christian Perspective. A Southern pastor's appraisal of the obligation and opportunity of the church
___________. Mandate For White Christians
Lincoln, C. Eric. 1999. "Introduction." In Mighty Like A River: The Black Church and Social Reform, au. Andrew Billingsley. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lincoln, C. Eric and Lawrence Mamiya. 1990. The Black Church in the African American Experience. Durham: Duke University Press.
Marx, Gary. 1967. Protest and Prejudice: A Study of Belief in the Black Community. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Myrdal, Gunnar. [1944] 1962. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
Joseph Washington. 1964. Black religion: the Negro and Christianity in the United States.
Wilmore, Gayraud. 1983. Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
Weatherford , Willis. American Churches and the Negro.
