Taking off from this thread, I thought I’d post about something I’ve always wondered about regarding the African-American community.
Why do the overwhelming majority of them today follow Christianity even though it was the religion practised and handed down to them by the enslavers of their ancestors?
Was there deliberate suppression of any original African belief systems/religions that their ancestors must have surely brought to the Americas with them as slaves?
I’m neither American nor Christian, but this issue has always amazed me.
Their ancestors were converted but, then again, that isn’t much different than the way the white population became Christian as well. The traditional African religions were suppressed but not completely. In some areas like Southern Louisiana and the Caribbean, you can still find elements of traditional African religion mixed with Christianity. Traditional black churches, especially in the South usually have a unique character to them and in the style of worship that is ultimately influenced by their ancestry.
A big reason that American blacks don’t practice African religions is that their ancestors came from different tribes and were mixed. There wasn’t one that could be chosen as the religion of record. Aside from the intentional conversion to Christianity, the vast majority of slaves had no first-hand knowledge of Africa and the religions there because they were born in America.
Because during the time of slavery, Christianity as practiced by black slaves was a major source of hope. The story of Christ resonates with anyone who feels that their suffering on Earth will ultimately be paid off when they are rewarded in Heaven. Slaves were sometimes forced to attend church sermons with the families that owned them, and in those sermons they would be told that good slaves are obedient and so on and so forth. Either that or they would not be allowed in white churches.
However slaves had their own congregations and practiced a form of Christianity that belonged to their culture. As Shagnasty said there were a lot of elements of various African religions as well as emphasis on the idea that there was freedom for them in Heaven, and that God was on their side.
My guess as to why black slaves embraced the religion of the people who enslaved them is because, well, Africa’s a big continent. These people were coming from vastly different nations and ethnic groups. But because all of them were united under Christianity they had something in common from which to form a community. Aaand, I just realized that’s exactly what Shagnasty’s post said, so - I second Shagnasty.
I speak English even though it was the religion practised and handed down to me by the murderers of my ancestors? And I wasn’t raised to worship Lugh, Jupiter, or Wotan.
Some black folks do leave Christianity. Some become Muslim (both the normal kind and NoI crazy kind), a religion their ancestors were unlikely to practice. Otherwise, their ancestors are dead, their ancestor’s slavers are dead, so the closest link is immediate family, who happen to have the same religion as you.
I am not sure why you seem to think that practicing Islam is unusual for people of African descent, when a large portion of Africa is Muslim, and has been since long before North America was set foot on by a single person of European descent, much less African descent.
Bolding mine. You do realize that the Muslim presence in West Africa predates American slavery, don’t you? Yes, Islam has expanded at the expense of indigenous religions, but it’s not inconceivable that enslaved Africans were Muslim at the time.
This. The life of a slave was brutal and dehumanizing. The only hope they could cling to was the promise of a better existence in their next life. Christianity gave them that hope. This is what many “negro spirituals” are about. And like most religions, once Christianity was embraced by a few generations, it was passed on, often uncritically.
Nation of Islam and such claim that it is their ancestral religion. I am going to guess that the proportion of Sub-Saharan captured slaves who were Muslim was much, much, much smaller than those practicing various indigenous religions.
Another factor might be that the rise of the abolition movement in the US coincided with and was largely driven by the Great Awakening of Christianity in America. Another might be the leading role played by the Christian Church in the civil rights movement of the sixties(even apart from MLK - cite).
Most African-Americans are probably descendants of African Muslims, African pantheists, Euro-American Christians, and perhaps some wildcards (Native Americans being probably the biggest) so their ancestral religion is all over the map. As with the Brer Rabbit tales and the similarities in some West African choirs and black Baptist choirs who until the 20th century had no contact with each other it’s to me far more amazing how much of their ancestral cultures (plural) survived than how much was destroyed.
As with Christianity in Europe and the U.S., there was little uniform about how Islam was practiced in Africa; what this area considers extremely important could be a big “Meh” to the village down the road a few miles just as how the Irish Catholics seemingly practice a completely different religion from Scottish Presbyterians. In all places- Africa and Europe and everywhere else- there was a lot of bleedthrough from what came before as well (palimpsest is the technical term) which led to ancient more pagan rituals still being preserved in various forms (not unlike the veneration of Mary in places that had mother goddesses or the fact every solstice/equinox has a Christian holiday on top of it). This happened in America as well.
Because church was the place where African-Americans could meet in large numbers and stand the least chance of being bothered by whites in the Jim Crow south it also took on major social and political empowerment attributes in the black community. I think this too would explain why it continues to be such a major force.
I’ll add to what I said that if you look at the story of Christ, this is the story of someone from a very poor background, where he and other Jews were treated badly by the people in power. The early Christians also had to go underground with their beliefs. There is an idea of rebellion and the victory of the underdog in the story of the New Testament, and I think this story could be very inspirational if you were part of a group of people who were enslaved and treated like animals, because the eventual victory goes to the faithful.
I’m glad you mentioned spirituals, because singing spiritual songs helped me understand how powerful and vital belief was and has been to African-Americans. I also recall a couple of songs that suggested that oppressors and cruel masters were bound for Hell, which has a satisfying sense of justice.
If you’ll be so kind as to tell me what makes the “normal” kind of Islam less crazy than the NOI?
If I had magic powers, black folks in this country would not be under the spell of Christianity like so many of them are. NOI may not be much better, but at least they (along with the Nation of Gods and Earths, another black ‘religion’) taught me to stop bowing down to a white God and Jesus and to find ‘god’ in myself. So there’s that to be said for them.
Depends what you mean by NOI. The original NOI ( which no longer uses that name ) has largely embraced mainstream Sunni Islam and isn’t substantially different.
The splinter group that calls itself NOI today ( i.e. Farrakhan et al ) rejects mainstream modern Islam’s racial universalism, which IMHO puts them a bit farther out there.
It is also arguably heretical, since among other things it embraces a prophet post-Muhammed in Wallace Fard, which means it can be plausibly argued to be a seperate Muslim-origined religion rather like the Druze or Baha’i. Which doesn’t make them “crazier” per se, but is a dividing line definitionally between them and the mainline faith.
ETA: Excuse me, I meant Fard, not Elijah Muhammed.
Butterfly McQueen made similar statements. She was best known as Prissy in Gone With the Wind but was pretty much nothing like the simple silly stupid characters she often played other than she had a high voice. She was a very outspoken atheist in real life.
When she died she left a chunk of her considerable estate to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist think tank.
Presumably because a typically African American looks looks at the life and teaching of Jesus Christ and decides that it is worth devoting his or her life to following Jesus. In other words, African Americans become Christians for the same reason that Christians of all races become Christians.
A side note not directed at you or anyone else in this thread, but I can’t help being struck by the way that some people can pride themselves on not being racist and yet automatically assume that black people never think about their religious life but instead just blindly follow tradition. Such an attitude is as much racist as anything else.
Islam is similar to the Bible, there are some weird things in it that are unprovable, but the historic record corresponds with some things. I don’t know if they found sacred scrolls in the ancient city of Detroit or what, but the whole Yakub doctrine is a bit off. And just because a religion has some crazy beliefs doesn’t make it all off, but rather what they choose to do in the present day. Some branches are better than others.
I am glad that they helped you find what you’re looking for though.
Black and white and everyone else typically rarely think about their religious life but instead just blindly follow tradition. People switching religions from what their parents practice is actually pretty rare. This is not a statement against religion, I think it goes the same for the nonreligious. There are environmental and possible genetic links to preferring the same things as your parents.
That’s a standard anti-religious diatribe around these parts. It’s also abundantly false.
In my own high school class, for example, at least 10% of the graduates (probably more like 20%) switched from the religions of their birth to something else. And in my own church, about half of the attendees came from other religions. Based on my own casual interactions with people, I routinely encounter folks whose religious beliefs do not match what their parents taught them.
Do most people grow up with the same old beliefs that their parents taught them? Possibly so, in the same way that many atheists put only cursory thought into the reasons for their atheism. It is not true that changes in religious beliefs are “pretty rare,” though. They are quite common. When one starts with the conviction (frequently expressed on the SDMB) that the religious are just unthinking sheep, then they naturally tend to assume that such conversions must be rare indeed.
It’s “abundantly false” because you have anecdotes to the contrary? I’d like to believe it false myself (I want to think that people are capable of thinking for themselves), but I want some data other than your perception of people you know, which is subject to confirmation bias.
You anecdote is not data indeed. Additionally, I would consider 10% to be a rather low number; that means 90% are accepting of this. I am not speaking from “anti-religious diatribe” but scientifically, preferences are passed down.
I imagine that these numbers are for North America and Western Europe, elsewhere the “apostasy” rate probably is much lower.
As far as data, here. It’s high for most religions, except perhaps Presbyterian and UMC. Given, I would guess that for religions like Catholicism and Judaism, being an adherent does not mean that you necessarily follow all the doctrine. Those religions are tied up into ethnic and cultural identity more than the others.
And how much hard data did thelurkinghorror present for his claim that conversions are rare? Oh, that’s right. None.
That’s par for the course around here, though. Skeptics can present all sorts of damning claims against religion without any substantiation, but if somebody takes issue with those claims, they suddenly demand hard facts.
FTR, I won’t claim to have any indisputable statistical evidence regarding the number of people who do adopt religious beliefs that differ from those of their parents. Frankly, I seriously doubt that you can find any such data. I can say that I’ve encountered plenty of people who did abandon the beliefs they were taught, enough to realize that such conversions are hardly “rare.”
You claim to speak “scientifically,” but you haven’t provided any data to this effect. Indeed, you had the perfect opportunity to do so in your response to me, but you failed to do so. (I’ll address your singular cite in a subsequent posting.)
I do agree that 10% is a relatively low number. In fact, if you had read my post carefully, you would have known that I specifically acknowledged that most people probably do grow up with the same beliefs that their parents taught. It is not so low as to warrant being “rare” though; after all, if 10% of all Americans had AIDS, would you logically conclude that AIDS is a “rare” disease? I would hope not!
“But it’s still a low number!” you’d doubtlessly protest – and again, I agree with that. Again, I acknowledged that the number of religious conversions is probably low. The point is that these conversions are not rare, as you insist they must surely be.
(Additionally, I’d like to point out that 10% only covers the number of conversions that I’m aware of in my high school graduating class. I think it’s fair to say that the actual number is higher than that – and that would be utterly consistent with my experiences in other social milieus as well.)
“But your experiences are still anecdotal!” you’re probably going to protest. “You haven’t provided any statistically valid data to back it up!” I agree, but by the same token, neither have you — even though you had the perfect opportunity to do so. Even though you insisted that your claim was (ahem) “scientific.” You can’t have it both ways, fella, which is why I don’t doubt that your claim is borne out of anti-religious condescension and prejudice rather than any scientific methodology.
