Well, an atheist classmate asked a few questions about slave owners and how they used christianity to control slaves. Since they were never given a real choice to practise their own African religion, how can they justify being christians now?
Of course, it could just be a strawman fallacy, but how would you answer that?
They don’t have to “justify” it. They were raised Christians, and remain so unless and until, for one reason or another, they lose faith in it. Even if that happens they might remain involved in their church, which has always the most socially important institution in their community (mainly because it was the one institution the African-Americans were always allowed to have of their own).
What’s he talking about, the old “curse of Ham” thing? Anabaptists, Quakers, and Mennonites were condemning slavery as early as the 17th century. And in the 18th century, John Wesley (founder of the Methodist denomination) led a massive campaign against slavery. I would say that what slave owners used to control slaves was the same thing government uses to control citizens — coercion.
You’re conflating “they” - slaves, hundreds of years ago, with “they” - black people today. Or in other words, how can you justify being (presumably) a Christian when your ancestors (presumably) worshipped the Celtic, Norse, or Roman gods? How can you tell if your ancestors converted willingly, or were converted by coercion? If you’re a Christian now, why should you care what people you never knew did?
Sounds like a “how can you embrace the [language, religion, whatever] of your oppressors?” argument. In the absence of a community to reinforce knowledge and mores, how were slaves born in Africa supposed to encourage their children to follow their religion? Especially when Christianity was (a) followed by the more successful members of society and (b) some sort of church attendance was often mandatory.
You think slaves were kept in isolation chambers? What makes you think they couldn’t practice their religion and raise their kids with their own social mores?
A belief is, ideally, not something you hold simply because it ties you to your ancestors, but something you hold because you have some reason to think it’s true. If you happen to think that Jesus was the son of God, died for man’s sins, was resurrected three days later, etc., then you are a Christian, whether or not your ancestors would’ve failed to agree, or were treated badly by people who thought those things were true, or what have you. A black Christian would justify being Christian the same way any other Christian would; something has convinced him that the various Christian beliefs are in fact true.
I don’t know if they used the message of Christ to ‘control’ the slaves.
but anyway
It’s the message of Christ that is the reason. The promise made by God to His people. I would think these people whose ancestors were slaves should be very thankful to God for revel Himself to them.
Anyway, there was no one “African religion.” Each nation and tribe had its own gods, myths and religious practices, except for those who were Muslims or (in Ethiopia) Jews or Monophysite Christians. And modern African-Americans have no cultural identification with any particular African culture or nationality – there’s no way they could, their bloodlines having gotten all mixed up in the second generation off the boats.
Speaking as an African-American who was raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, converted to The Nation of Islam in his teens and has a hella lot of preachers in his family, I have three observations:
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Some historically black Christian churches teach that during slavery the word of God was perverted to condone chattel slavery, and that interpretations of passages in the Bible still exist to defend the view that enslaving Africans was okay with God and a duty among white Christiandom, and try and show these perversions along with the Truth and the Light.
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Many nominally black religious sects and denominations have sprung up to combat white supremacy with teachings that are a mix of religious fervor and bigoted-to-racist interpretations of a wide array of religious dogma: i.e., the Nation of Islam, the Five Percent Nation
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Some black so-called Christians are just DUMB.
BrainGlutton: Consider the Carolina Gullah. http://www.bcgov.net/bftlib/gullah2.htm#Religion
Slaves also took a lot of the Christian message to heart in ways that their masters probably would not have liked. Many blacks who were slaves in America genuinely bought into Christianity and believed that some day God would free them.
Well, yes, the slavers wouldn’t let the slaves learn to read, so they couldn’t read the Bible. They didn’t care much about the slave’s actual welfare.
As for modern black Christians, being Christian I expect that most either ignore any evils committed in the name of Christianity, or deep down think that their ancestors benefited from being enslaved since it converted them to Christianity, and to a true Christian that’s all that matters.
Strange thread. It did remind me of a scene from Gods and General in which a confederate general asks his long time slave to pray with him. Of course the slave agrees. He folds his hands as the general prays for strength and courage to overcome the enemy and [reserve their way of life. At one point he makes some reference to slavery {probably indirect} in the prayer and his slave turns and looks at him as if to say. “You do remember you asked me to pray with you and I’m standing right here,…don’t you?”
Amazing what the human mind can justify isn’t it?
It’s a good thing we allow witnessing in this Forum so that you can post your most cherished beliefs without being held to provide evidence for them.
Tom, hard as it may be to believe, the crazy black lady who keeps calling me the antichrist appears to believe something of that nature. Predestination is real, and all things are as God willed it.
The slave owners also used the English language to control slaves. Since they were never given a real chance to speak their own African language(s), how can they justify speaking English now?
Christianity started out as a slave religion, and has a lot within it that would appeal to a slave. The notion of an everlasting freedom granted in the afterlife can appeal to someone who cannot see freedom occurring in this life.
Yes, actually they were. Oftentimes slaves were split up from their families in order to minimize the possibility of an organized revolt by putting them in bondage next to slaves from other tribes who had different languages and customs. There was intense social pressure to force them to adopt Christianity and the culture of their oppressors, much like they were with the Native Americans.
kanicbird Might I recommend “Missionary Conquest.” by George Tinker. It’s about how missionaries helped with the conquest of the Native Americans. George Tinker is a Christian preacher of Native American descent, so he has a quite unique perspective on it.
But they used the Bible, such as citing passages that call for slaves to be good and obedient to their masters. They used the myth about the son of Ham to justify their racism against blacks. They taught slaves that God was white. If the oppressor is a reflection of God, you’re going to think twice before crossing him.
This isn’t true, and I’m surprised that you would believe this considering how long you’ve been on the 'Dope. Do you think black music, food, dialect, styles of worship, and dance are indigenous to North America? These things did not arise in a vacuum created by Massa and Missy.
Black and white much?
I have a militant, dare I say, borderline racist mother (racist against whites) who’s fervently Christian and also extremely liberal. She’s fully aware of the evil committed in the name of Christianity. But she wouldn’t put slavery in that list. Yes, Christianity was used to control slaves, but it was not the driving force behind slavery. The First Church of Capitalism gets that award.
A Christian could make the argument that 1.) Christianity was bound to come to the west Africans even without slavery and whites (it had been on the continent for centuries) and 2)God gave slaves Christianity to help them survive through the trials and tribulations. He just used the slavemaster as a conduit. And it’s hard to argue that Christianity didn’t help them survive in all kinds of ways. Just as it was used to make them subservient to the system, it was used to subvert the system. Prayer meetings were often ruses for “rebellion talk”, and negro spirituals were used to transmit code for runaways. Figures like Moses and Jesus made way for figures like Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman.
American slaves were not stupid or morally retarded. They knew there was a blatant contradiction between what the oppressor practiced and what they preached. But I would wager that it was that hypocrisy that drew blacks towards Christianity, rather than away from it.
Implicit in this question is the notion that for non-Blacks Christianity makes intuitive sense. When I consider how the rain of painful and capricious events falls equally on the just and the unjust, Christian and non-Christian, I come to the conclusion that Christians do not “justify” being Christians. They accept their beliefs by faith or default, but not because it makes sense or because it has been historically (or currently) beneficial per se.