Christianity Is Not A “White Man’s” Religion
Well, before we even get into this topic of ethnicity and African presence in the bible, we have to deal with certain regions in the bible. Once we do that, we then have to look at the climates of those regions. After looking at those two things we must then look at the people in the bible. Lastly we will look at Jesus himself. Why does this matter? It matters because there is still a detachment from Christianity that some African Americans feel because most of the art and movies about biblical characters look more Caucasian than African. This is not a new topic for me. Starting as a teenager and then moving into my young adult days I became radical thinker. If you’ve read my blogs you may have noticed that not much has changed. As a Christian I was very intrigued by other religious beliefs. In the late ’80s and early ’90s I learned a lot about my own beliefs by having very spirited yet respectful discussions with young men who were a part of the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam is thought by some to be a hate group and by others to be an Islamic sect that strongly emphasizes African American self-esteem. Either way the guys I talked to studied the Bible a lot and challenged me to become a better Bible student. One thing that the guys from the Nation of Islam challenged me on is the topic of Christianity being a “White Man’s” religion. This was something that stuck with me. They would show me pictures of a blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus. They pointed out how Cecil B. Demille avoided having any of the biblical characters in his movies showing any hint of African lineage. If that were not enough, they then pounded me with Elisabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra. This forced me to study. I was shocked to find what I found. I came to learn that they were right about some of the distortions of historical fact. They were correct in pointing out that a lot of the biblical imagery that is portrayed in art and movies was and still is at times very Eurocentric. In the first chapter of Genesis God created everything in 6 days and then God rested on Saturday. Things get very sticky for some when we get into the 2nd chapter. Most Sunday school lessons and Biblical commentaries omit any discussion that involves verses 10 through 14 of the 2nd chapter. In those verses the writer of Genesis tries to give the readers the location of Eden and it’s surrounding territories. In verses 11 through 13, the writer gives a lot of detail but verse 14 is almost an afterthought. The writer describes the flow of an unnamed river that flows out into four rivers. Where this river is placed is important because it flows out to four critical locations. The main regions were named after the people who first settled those regions according to scripture. The first place mentioned is the land of Havilah. I will get back to Noah and the flood in a moment but if you look up the land of Havilah you will find that it is the name of the land now known as Arabia. Havilah is also the name of one of Noah’s great grandson. The second place mentioned is the land of Cush which the Greeks called Ethiopia. Cush is one of Noah’s grandsons. The land of Cush is on the African continent. The writer went into a lot of detail to talk about what is found in Cush and Havilah. What is interesting is the fact that the Nile flows northward, meaning, from south to north and at one point flowed to all of the regions mentioned by the writer of Genesis. Many scholars and theologians fail to mention or write about the similarities of the Nile and the unnamed river in the 2nd chapter of Genesis. Hmm, I wonder why? In the 14th verse Tigris and Euphrates are mentioned as after thoughts with not much detail. If we look at the way the passage says the river flowed into four heads, in order to flow to Tigris, Euphrates, Ethiopia and Arabia this river would have to flow north and not south. This puts Eden somewhere in the continent of Africa. With this being the case it is highly unlikely that Adam and Eve would be, by American standards, white or Caucasian. What is also mentioned in Genesis 3:8 are the words “…the cool of the day”(KJV). There is no “cool of the day” without the warm or even hot of the day. Hot and even warm means sun. To my knowledge there were no buildings in Eden, so that meant that Adam and Eve were outside all day. If you are out in the sun all day every day, it is impossible to have a light completion. One of Adam and Eve’s descendants was Noah. I know you have heard about the flood but some taught the falsehood that Noah’s 3 sons represented the three hues of man (Mongoloid, Caucasoid and Negroid). According to false teaching, a White man named Noah had a Black son named Ham, an Asian son named Japheth and a White son named Shem. It’s obvious that if Adam and Eve were dark skinned people from the continent of Africa then their descendants would be dark skinned as well. By American standards, Noah and his family including his 3 sons were all of African descent. In Genesis 10:6 we find that one of Ham’s descendants is Cush. Remember the writer of Genesis called a region Cush that was near Eden. The Greeks named the people of this region Ethiopians which means burnt faced people. The Greeks named where these people lived Ethiopia, because it was the land of the burnt faced people. In other words, these people were dark skinned Negroid or black people. In Genesis 10:7 Cush had a son named Havilah. Havilah, as a reminder, settled in Arabia. Scientists would even be hard pressed to prove that life began in Europe. What some would deem Caucasian people didn’t existed at this point in Genesis if you use Genesis as a historical guide to the beginnings of humanity. Once we get to the 11th chapter, we reach the story of the tower of Babel. A brief synopsis goes like this; everybody on earth was in one place and decided to build a tower as high as they possibly could. God sees what they are doing and knows that it is possible as long as they were unified. In order to stop this building project God came down and caused everyone to speak different languages. At this point those who spoke Spanish found others who spoke Spanish and migrated to Spain. The same happened with English speaking people and so on and so forth. If you think about it, those who went to colder climates adapted to those climates. Over time, after many descendants, it’s safe to say they probably began to look different from the darker skinned people who remained in the hotter climates. Let’s move to the story of who is believed to be the writer of Genesis, Moses. I’m sure you know or have read about Moses being put in a basket by his Sister to float down a river to a place where Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing in Egypt. Moses was taken in by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in the house of Pharaoh as her child. There is no way Moses could have looked like Charlton Heston and flown under the radar in the house of Pharaoh. Moses had to at least resemble the Egyptians to be treated as one of their own. Keep in mind the Egyptians you see today are not the Egyptians Moses saw. In 353 BC, Egypt fell to the Persians. This fall meant that those peoples intermingled. Prior to that Egyptians looked like Ethiopians. All of them were burnt faced people, according to the Greeks. Keep in mind that this was not a derogatory term by the Greeks but merely the best description they had to describe dark skinned people. With that said the Hebrew people including Moses had to look like the Cushites or Ethiopians or as the Greeks described burnt faced people. Hold on to your hat for this one, according to American standards, Abraham and his descendants, including Moses, at the very least, looked like what Americans would describe as Negroid or black. I could go into all of the times Ethiopia and Egypt are mentioned in the Bible but to some that would seem heavy-handed. Keep in mind I am only expounding on what the Bible clearly lays out about the appearance of certain people in scripture. There is so much biblical history about Africa that it would take much longer to go into all of the facts but I will point out something else that is quite interesting. In Matthew 2:13 an angel of God tells Joseph to take his family to Egypt. The angel gave these instruction to Jesus’ earthly father because Herod was about to kill all of the boys 2 years and younger around Bethlehem during that time. We’ve already noted that Egypt was a region of dark-skinned, African people. Would God have His angel to tell Joseph to hide himself, his wife and Jesus in a region where they could be easily spotted? Can you imagine Joseph, Mary and Jesus being white by American standards trying to move about in the midst of a bunch of dark-skinned people, African people? To put it bluntly Herod would have found Jesus and killed him. Going to Egypt was smart because they could blend in. Wait a minute!!! That means, by American standards, Jesus had to be black. How do I come to this conclusion? First, he had to look Egyptian, second, he was a descendant of Abraham and third, he was in a sun drenched region that is still very close to Africa. One last thing, check out Acts 21:37-39. A Roman commander thought Paul was an Egyptian. Even the Apostle Paul looked like what Americans would call a black maan. According to Ephesians 1:7 “He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.” Is this passage saying that the the whole body of Christ is black according to America’s “one-drop rule”? Ok, I have now scared a lot of people so let me say here that in the Bible skin color didn’t matter. Unfortunately in a lot of art and literature skin color mattered too much. Sadly in most American churches Africa is conveniently forgotten about as it relates to biblical history. Christianity is for all people of all colors and nationalities. I just wish that the African presence in scripture was not extracted through ignorance or blatant racism. With that said, the Church should be more like the church was in Antioch. In Acts 13:1 we see that many nationalities were in this church’s congregation. This blog should help dispel the myth that Christianity is a “White Man’s” religion. 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Brother Travon,
Here is a link to Dr. Neil Lettinga’s website;http://www.bethel.edu/~letnie/AfricanChristianity/Sub-SaharaHomepage. He’s a Christian, earned a PhD from Johns Hopkins University and Professor of History. This article, although it is written from a Christian perspective, lends some credence to my position that our African ancestors were converted by European missionaries starting in the 15th century. African American Christians are not the product of first century, North/East African Christianity. The early church fathers, many of whom were North Africans, had nothing to do with our animistic/pantheistic West African progenitors. Just something to think about.
Rob
Brother Travon, I appreciate your candor in elucidating your experiences with your fellow Christians, it’s refreshing. However I have a difficult time in understanding your anthropological/historical construct regarding Christianity and its’ possible African roots. It isn’t new, I’ve heard Jeremiah Wright espouse this position in an interview with Bill Moyers and Charles Gilmer’s article ” The truth about Jesus” on the everystudent.com website touches on the same points. Here are a few questions that may shed some additional light on this subject.
1) How were the overwhelming majority of African slaves, and their immediate descendants, introduced to Christianity?
2) If Christianity and its’ texts has such a strong African connection; why didn’t the invading European, Christian entrepreneurs find West African Christian settlements when they arrived onto our ancestral shores?
3) What spiritual, religious or economic ties do/did the northern and eastern cultures of the African continent have with the Sub-Saharan and western African cultures (our place of origin)?
4) Did the God that you worship orchestrate or sub-contract the slave trade and the institution of American slavery, subjecting our ancestors to the most inhumane treatment ever inflicted upon human beings just so that the misguided, misinformed and miseducated European-American Christian slave owners would one day “wake up”; realize that they were wrong, legalize the “negro literacy project” and introduce us to Christianity?… And then by the most serendipitous luck imaginable, Black American Christians would one day find out that Christianity REALLY belonged to them too?
5) How do you take the Judeo-Christian bible literally, in the English format, when every biblical textual critic knows that there are no original copies of this holiest of holy books? No one in antiquity spoke a drop of modern english, the earliest surviving autographs of “complete” bibles date back to the forth century and were not written in English; how are you so sure what Jesus or Moses or anyone portrayed in that book said what they allegedly said? You don’t know….but you probably have faith; and faith, for me, equals business and business equals the “Three Major Crime Families,” Judaism, its’ schismatic sibling, Christianity and its’ unrequited cousin, Islam.
Insist if you must “counselor” Potts that Christianity is not the “White Man’s” religion, but the circ**stantial evidence against your theory is overwhelming…and reasonable, rational and critically thinking brothers and sisters will continue to object to these specious arguments until you (and your “firm”) either produces better evidence or withdraw your case. ‘Nuff said for now.
Peace, Respect and Critical Thinking,
Rob
blog: “The African American Agnostic”
so its not really a white mans religion, its a black mans religion. and no, i still dont follow that part about how the other races that aint african came about. that wouldve been ignorance on the greeks part because if they descended from adam and eve they would therefore be “burnt-faced people” as well. and that without even understandin what rome was back then. rome then was also black people. and to think the white man thought they was whitewashin africa and native america by forcin them to learn english and be christians and live “white”. they were callin people the n-word and pushin the “n-word” book on people at the same time. thats some crazy shyit man. so 1000s of years before the “black book” people are familiar with now there was a different Black book. all of the disciples and ‘famous’ people noted in there was all africans even the beloved “white” christ. unless he had vitiligo when he was teenager (a reason those years got left out) and then came back as a white guy and got crucified because he was the only “white” man in the whole bible. now it all makes sense. he didnt die for our sins unless by “sins” people meant puttin white on a pedestal above all races which is what christ came to symbolize the death of. so all non-black people are demons sent by satan to destroy the only race that shouldve have existed. god must be pissed that theres so much immigration and interracial in america. the whole earth was supposed to be black people. thats why its so damn crowded because of the other races.
if you’re a Christian just please think on this…..
is it better to WORSHIP Jesus, thinking he IS God???
OR
living YOUR life trying to BE Christ-like???
*remember that ‘Christ’(karast) IS NOT a name, Christ is a title. Christ means “annoited or purified”.
Jesus/Yahshuah wore red & white cuz red means Justice and White means Purity.
dont let these Romans and Pharisees fool you !!!
the Holy Bible aka Helios Byblos aka Sun Papyrus is a remix of Kemet/egyptian doctrine.
Jesus = Ausar/Heru
Mary = Auset/Isis
Torah, Bible & Quran are remix version of Egypt and Sumer (BLACK civilizations)
dont let the pale europeans and pale arabs keep you a mental-slave running behind THEM all the time.
with religion, like anything else….take the USEFUL parts and USE IT and leave the rest alone.
DO NOT believe the Bible as being literal
DO NOT believe the Bible as a real history book (its not)
much of the bible is allegorical, symbolic (Astrology etc) etc.
the original trinity is man womban and child.
Ausar aka Lazarus aka Hiram aka Jesus….. the ressurection is talking about YOUR ressurection….
“know thyself”
Psalms 82:6 !!!!!!
Peace Hotep Ase Salaam Shalom
christianity is SO A CAUCASOID RELIGION, IT IS NOT EVEN FUNNY. I could not agree w/ can_i_massage _u… more forcefully.
My 1st book HOW TO MAKE A NEGRO CHRISTIAN (www.lulu.com/kamau301) goes into just this matter. Since most Black folks don’t know the REAL history of christianity, it is easy to pass it off as something else, as pastors, priests, preachers have been doing for about 100 plus years of Black life in america.
Can_i…went into some of that REAL history, my book goes into another aspect of it.
What were we as stolen Afrikans doing spiritually, BEFORE we were brought to these shores??? How were we made into christians??? We do not ask ourselves these questions…but the truth of the matter is we were not blank spiritual slates when we came over & christianity was forced & whipped into us.
Using examples of alleged blacks in the bible for proof is like saying the republicans are in our interests because of condaleeza rice & michael steele. We have to do better & we will do better, but first we must move beyond forced-upon us religions of our oppressors.
“We will never truLy be free until we return to our Afrikan Spirituality!!!”
(HOW TO MAKE A NEGRO CHRISTIAN http://www.lulu.com/kamau301)
First I would like to say thank you for your line of defense. However, the idea or understanding today of racism and the Black/White issue is a new perspective. There was no such discrimination or racism in terms of Black and White during the times of the Bible period. The distinction was based on either culture, religion, or political lines. To think that people of color were intentionally removed from the Scriptures by the authors is ridiculous. The Scriptures themselves make no attempt to portray its characters all of any ethnicity or nationality. That is the ignorance, denial, and bias of the now existing “White” society. The focus of the Scriptures is the coming Messiah “Jesus”. When people are not open to the truth, they will accept anything that sounds good. King James did not write his own Bible. There are countless things throughout the Bible that condemn the lifestyle he lead, and the practices it is said he engaged in particularly “Homosexuality”. If I was going write my own Bible, I doubt that I would include that Homosexuality is an “abomination” to God, and those that practice such things are cursed for eternal destruction. The Lord Christ should be the real focus.
Here is the delema. Even though we can read through the bible and say that people were in this part of the world or not in this part of the world, the fact is the bible as we know it was formed and put together by white people as a why of control.
Lets look at the facts:
1. The bible as we know it (That has come to be the King James version of the bible) was first put together by the Constantine I of Rome who was white.
Constantine I was not a real Christian even though he was exposed to it by his mother. He became a Christian when he was 40 in order to control the direction of it and get the empire under control. He commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople. Athanasius (Apol. Const. 4) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans. This provided motivation for canon lists, and that Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus are examples of these Bibles. Together with the Pes**tta, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles.
So the books that we claim as Gospel were put together and edited by white people.
2. As we know most Africans who were brought to America as slaves were not Christians. If they were one of the BIG 3 then they (We) were most likely Muslim. Then our slave masters ether beat, tricked or only allowed access to Christianity to control us. Its funny that we have now taken it on as out own and are trying to explain away the fact that it was forced on our ancestors all over the world.
3. Black people all over the world are some of the most ardent people when it comes to religion. You can’t tell black people NOTHING when it comes to religion, shoot we will fight over that! The thing is that the people who least believe in Christianity seem to do best in this world: White people, Chinese people, Indian people etc. Us Christian sheep (Black people, Latino people etc) we are all at the bottom struggling and praying for a better day. While the Chinese and India have figured out white people and have moved China and India into super power status. Can we get one Black country or Latin country to get into the doing good status? Ok Brazil is not so bad. But that is about it. 52 countries in Africa and how many of them are doing good?? Hummmmm. But when the Pope came to town people were killing each other to get to see him. After all that the Catholic did to Africa! But that blind faith and belief will make you over look, make you forget.
4. And in reality we are just along for the ride. The King James bible? White people. The reason we even have a Protestant bible and we are not Catholics? White people, most of the places in Africa and Latin America that are Christian? White people. The reason we can over look all the craziness in the bible and believe it (Like the fact that there were Adam and Eve as you mention and then they had children but then their children would of committed incest to further populate the world) white people.
All I can say is that we can pretend like it’s not under control of white people if we like. But in the end even most of the denominations are under that control so we will just keep following and trying to talk ourselves into believing that its really about black folk.