Christianity
What do people look for in religion? Do they look for guidance, beliefs, reason, or do they look for help? African-Americans have looked for all of these for many years. They found all of these in Christianity. Christians believe in one God who they worship, trust, and look up to. Since Christianity was first introduced in the early Colonial Period, African-Americans have used their Christian beliefs to fight horrible things that have gone on in America such as slavery and segregation.
As African-Americans were captured through the slave trade and brought to the colonies they possessed many different religious beliefs. Many people are extremely ignorant in history and believe that all African-Americans were once united together as a whole in Africa. This was not nearly the case. Africa was made up of many different states with many different people and with many different beliefs. These people were dark skinned, but aren't all white people light skinned. The white man has never agreed on one main language. As the African-Americans were brought to the colonies from Africa, they used Christianity to help bring them together.
Some people use song and dance to express their Christian beliefs. The slaves started all this. African-American slaves used songs, dances, and often stories to show their feelings about God. These stories were called trickster stories. As African-American slaves became more involved in the Christian faith it gave them something to live and fight for. Instead of doing labor for their white owners, they did their work for themselves and most importantly, they did it for God.
Slaves were treated as animals. They were forced to work in the fields, in ...
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..., God can defeat the evils that happened during slavery and segregation. King fought long and hard against segregation while spreading God's word and finally won a battle. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was put into Congress and passed. This was a huge step for the African-American community. This act gave blacks the self-esteem and the equal rights that they had been waiting for. Even though this does not end hatred in America, it definitely puts a serious dent in it. Martin Luther King, Jr. touched many people, including whites, through his powerful speeches.
Christianity has done many different things for many different people. It reached out and grabbed blacks and gave them something to live and die for. There were many times when African-Americans did not understand the works of God. They found out that God truly does work in mysterious ways.
Becoming a true theologian and scholar deals with not limiting the extents of homiletics. The assumption is that the black preaching tradition is distinct and identifiable. What is interesting for any African American student of homiletics is that while many argue for a defined set of African American homiletic characteristics, there is little agreement on what these characteristics are? When people try to characterize what makes African Ame...
The second edition of “African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness,” covers the religious experiences of African Americans—from the late eighteenth century until the early 1980s. My paper is written in a chronological order to reflect on the progress blacks have made during the years—by expounding on the earliest religion of Africans to black religion of today. Race Relation and Religion plays a major role in today’s society—history is present in all that we do and it is to history that African-Americans have its identity and aspiration.
I feel their spirituals is what really relived an was the real motivation for them. Just as Johnson said “Spirituals had extraordinary power to shape the slaves’ experience and identity”) Johnson, 118). Through these songs they expressed their sorrow, fear, hope, and suffering. Cones’ teachings express the “Spirituals” as a way God’s spirts were entering into the lives of the people.
Kroll, P. (2006). The African-American Church in America. Grace Communion International. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://www.gci.org/history/african
Black Liberation Theology is the systematic analysis of the historical Black experience in the United States, which in affirms slave/African American humanity in the world. It is, according to one of the original advocates of the philosophy, James H. Cone, “A rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the Gospel, which is Jesus Christ.” Black liberation theology is systematic in that it has evolved over four hundred years, dating back to the first Africans that were stolen and brought to this country. This theology originated with the slaves as they incorporated their spiritual and holistic understandings of the universe into the distorted Christianity of passivity and repr...
The black slaves in general held to a different form Christianity that was unbeknownst to traditional orthodox Christianity. As discussed in lecture on February 4, 2014, black slaves held to an interpretation of Christianity that placed emphasis on the Old Testament, and all of its hero’s and accomplishments. The slaves also reinterpreted Jesus Christ, figuring Him into the Old Testament context of an Old Testament King like King David, who achieved many victories upon this earth (Lecture 2/4/14). Due to the perversion of Christian teachings from slave master and their erroneous catechisms, the slaves reacted strongly against the New Testament and its teachings. In turn, the slaves would cling to the Old Testament, particularly due to the role that the Jews suffered in the midst of their captivity to the Egyptians in ancient times. (Covered in the Bible under the Old Testament books of Genesis and Exodus) The reality of God coming to the aid of His chosen people the Jews was a theme that encouraged and comforted the slaves, and they gladly adopted this similar idea of being God’s “chosen people.” Also, the slaves held to Old ...
Moreover, many owners later came to feel that Christianity may actually have encouraged rebellion (all those stories of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt, after all, talked about the liberation of the slaves), and so they began to discourage Christian missionaries from preaching to the slaves. African Americans have taken their own spiritual, religious journey. God was looked upon as a source of peace and encouragement. The community of enslave Africans were able to use religion and spirituality as a way of overcoming the mental anguish of slavery on a daily basis. To a slave, religion was the most important aspect of their life. Nothing could come between their relationship with god. It was their rock, the only reason why they could wake up in the morning, the only way that they endured this most turbulent time in our history.
Some Americans had a difficult time accepting people of color as their equals, for many still believed that that whites were superior to blacks. Even to the extent that “many Christian ministries and theologians taught that whites were the chosen people, blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation.” African Americans were treated as second class citizens and had to follow Jim Crow Laws, which segregated both white and people of color in areas such as school, restaurants, and many more. The Jim Crow Laws along with cases where black people were unjustly murdered by white people acted as a catalyst for the creation of civil right movement groups. Amongst such groups was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was led by Martin Luther King Jr. King’s method of using peaceful protest paved the way to equal rights, because as King describes in his Power of Non Violence
When one thinks of African American spirituals, images of a church service with a choir singing in beautiful harmony swaying in rhythm to the music usually ensue. Spirituals are far more significant than hymns sung by Christians in a church setting, as we shall soon see.
...ans had for generations practiced and defended not just slavery, but the hatred and demise of anything black or African. Cone's mission was to bring blackness and Christianity together.”# In 1969, Cone published Black Theology and Black Power. In this book, Cone brought attention to racism in theology and proposes a theology addressing black issues, this theology would provide liberation and empowerment of blacks and “create a new value structures so that our understanding of blackness will not depend upon European misconceptions.”# From these convictions, the idea of black liberation theology was created. Black relate Christianity to the struggles they have endured, therefore it has to be black. “In a society where men are defined on the basis of color of the victims, proclaiming that the condition of the poor is incongruous with him who has come to liberate us.”
The concept of black liberation theology is a concept that requires us to scratch away at the surface of religion to uncover a new and radical approach to understanding faith and doctrine in the face of a legacy of oppression, persecution and white dominance over the black community; whilst forcing us to look at history, politics and religion all in the same sphere to grasp the fundamental question on what it means to be black and have a relationship with God. It is in itself a growing movement that is attempting to break away from the shackles of white supremacy towards a notion of religious freedom that is both tangible and metaphorical, whilst reinforcing that although we live in a modern age where the law tells us that that we are all
In our world, today there are many different cultures with their own beliefs, values, morals, and challenges. With each of those things comes diversity between all of the different cultures and ethnic groups. Each culture is unique in its own way. African Americans are one of the many ethnic groups found around the world and right here in the United States of America. They are descendants of both African culture and American-European culture, as they were both ethnic groups enslaved during 17th and 18th centuries. Since they are descendants of both cultures, they have a mix of aspects from each. The African American population in 2000 was 34,675,985 and grew to 41,359,936 by 2017. That is a large amount of growth for an ethnic group in the
The Negro spirituals were permitted because to slave owners it seemed as though the slaves were beginning to convert to Christianity.
In 1636, a Dutch minister Everadus Bogardus brought a teacher to the island of Manhattan in order to teach Dutch and African children how to read and write so that they may be effective members of Christianity. He was the first white settler to take an active intrest in educating African American students both free and enslaved (“The Black Past,” 2016). Others soon followed his lead, and in 1695, Anglican reverend Samuel Thomas opened the first colonial school for African Americans. However, many slave owners refused to send their slaves to school because it was a widespread belief that Christians should not own other Christians, until of course slaves started converting to Christianity, so laws were passed to nullify the previous held belief (“The Black Past,” 2016). In addition, educating African Americans was unpopular because, “…they [slave owners] worried that the slaves would see themselves as their masters’ equal, at least in the eyes of god,” (Reiss, 1997, p. 222). South Carolina even went as far as outlawing the education of slaves in 1740, but schools in other states continued to open in order provide African American children with an education (“The Black Past,”
During that period of time, African American could be the most cruel people in America. Though in modern time America, congress has removed slavery laws, but black people were not getting a lot of respects. Whenever they go to a restroom, there are white restroom and colored restroom. Also, they have set up the different section of trains which is colored section and white section. The saddest part is that when an African american has the same job a white people has, he would most likely to get lower pays than the white people, or even can not get pays. The society has been so cruel to African americans. So it is so far from the “All men are created equal”. So if we want to let America be America again, we should deny the color of skins make differences, but admit that everyone no matter what color he is, he is a man."Let it be the dream it used to be.Let it be the pioneer on the plain "Seeking a home where he himself is free.Man should not be treated differently because of the differences on religions. From the matter of fact that no matter what kind of religion, people believes in God, but different kind of God. Christian had reject the atheist a lot, also other religions too. America was built base on the freedom of religion, so that atheist and other religious should stand on the same stage, and there is no the better religion in this nation. People should treat each others the same instead of treating