This
entry is a follow-up from last week.
Given
that contemporary Bahamian society contains a plurality of religious and
secular views on the meaning and purpose of God in relation to humanity it
seems unfortunate to push all persons in a society toward a particular religious
belief. In situations like this, a
culture of conforming to the dominant group, in this case, religion is typically
experienced. With this in mind, this entry is a review of how Christianity in a
pre-slavery and slavery context constructed negativity surrounding Blacks. It is clear that early Christian theologians used
these contextualized studies of Race and Body Politics as a basis for making
universal theological claims. This practice of a dominant group pushing their views on a powerless group is a problem. By contrast, I offer history and practical
suggestions toward a better life for Blacks.
 |
| Rev. Jevon Neely in Ghana 2007 |
Throughout history,
the interpretation of the Bible has played a critical role in the formation and
promotion of race (racism) and sex (especially misogyny) dynamics. The difference between the existence of Black
and White, Male and Female, and the correlation of Black to evil and White to
purity, were products of Christianity from very early times.
In
the Epistle of Barnabas (70-115 CE),
the devil, the epitome of the Christian symbolism of evil is portrayed as Black
in early Christian philosophy. In his
Greek Commentarium and Homilae in
Canticum Canticorum, Origen presents an interpretation of the Black bride
in Song of Songs 1:5-6 as representative of the Gentile (non-Jew) Church, which
is said to be Black by virtue of its “illegitimate birth”, yet possessing a
beauty only by forgiveness from God.
Then
the Church officially reinforced this predicament of beauty, carnality, and
negativity about Blacks at the fifth-century Council of Toledo. Also, Jerome’s translation of Song and Songs
1:5 as “I am black but
beautiful” is rather interesting, if not interpretively suspicious. In Hebrew the conjunction between the “black”
and “beautiful” is a waw (meaning
‘and’) and even the Septuagint’s (one of the first versions of the Bible) translation
uses kai (again meaning “and”). However, Jerome translates the Hebrew waw as the Latin sed (meaning “but”), rather than et (meaning “and”), as if the fact of being beautiful is abnormal
for a Black person. This language is the basis for the color prejudice that was
present in Christian conversation long before the first use of term “race” in
the fifteenth century.
The
biblical “Cain” (after killing Abel) was depicted as Black in the medieval
period with Negro features and the so called curse on Ham (Canaanite Curse) was
also associated with Cain. From the days of St. Augustine, Christians had
already linked Cain to the Jews. However
in 1146, this changed and in 1215, papal decree validated this position.
Based
on these ideals of beauty that used skin color to support White Christianity’s fascination
with the degradation of the Black Body, Enlightenment writers such as Hume and
Kant assumed their racist views needed no evidence (White Privilege).
So
by the time of slavery, when the first slave ship named “Jesus” landed on the
shores of Africa, the Europeans viewed and treated Africans as soulless animals
(not human) who lacked cerebral ability for intellect and morality. Also, Africans
were deemed inferior because they were mainly Muslim or practitioners of African
Traditional Religions (ATR’s).
With
transatlantic slave-trading, Africans were fully reduced to the status of
property. For those Africans who actually survived the journey across the
Atlantic and social death or family displacement or decided not to commit
suicide, the “new life” brought a new heave of abuses: children born into
slavery, masters with the authority to murder, maim, rape, lynch, sexually and
emotionally abuse, and place limits on education, religion (Islam and ATR’s) and
movement.
As before, the
Bible played a big role in the assault on the Black Body. To justify slavery’s
regime, Anglican Bishop of London (1727) sanctioned slavery with his reading of
1 Corinthians 7:20-24; and many slaveholders in North America and the Caribbean
appealed to the Bible as well (e.g., Gen. 9; 14:14; 14:18-20; 17:13; Exod.
12:43-45; 20:17; 21: 2-6; 21: 20-21; Lev. 25: 44-46; Deut. 23:15-16; Eph.
6:5-9). Evangelism of Blacks was not done on a large scale until the Great
Awakening in the 1730’s. Prior to that
it was believed that Blacks had no soul, and with no soul (the part of the
human body that will be judged in the Judgment) there was nothing to be saved
by White Christianity’s “Jesus”.
Deconstructing
the myths, however, reveals that the biblical myths are just that, myths. They are not authentic or accurate, but are
simply the duplications of views that take on the appearance of reality. These myths
must be perpetuated by White Christianity (not only Whites, but persons who support,
think, broadcast and continue the teachings) because the view of Blacks as emotive
as oppose to intellectual, sub-human, criminal, diseased, evil and hypersexual is
the basis of the .
The
religious concept of the wrongful Black Body is not new. There was/is a very intentional history started by White Christianity to dehumanize Blacks. Where we cannot go wrong is blaming Jesus (the historical figure and the Christ) for the sinful efforts of the man-made social entity called "Christianity". One cannot blame Jesus for what Christianity did.
By detailing a historical review of
the Christianity and the African Salve it is understandable that the efforts of
Christianizing the Slaves were doomed before it ever started. The starting
point of White Christianity in its method to the Black Body (and soul) is
theologically inappropriate. It is
unavoidable and imperative that all people – professionals and paupers – investigate
the value of indigenous theology and work towards their own salvation.
In
Christ,
Rev.
Jevon O. Neely
