Church by Definition - a place for slaves

Some may perceive that the church, as a bastion of religious humility, would speak out against the violence of perpetuating human bondage and degradation that has historically been inflicted upon the descendants of slaves in America. Throughout the history of Africans in America, from slavery to the present day, one constant has been the impact of religion, especially Christianity, on the physical and mental enslavement of African Americans.

Europe’s advancement into the New World brought colonialism, slavery and imperialism under the guise of Christianity, which according to Sipe Mzimela, is nothing more than variations of European cultures, specifically German (Lutheranism), English (Anglicanism & Methodism), Scottish (Presbyterianism) and the French, Belgian and Portuguese (Catholicism).

Christian missionaries preached all men were equal under the eyes of God, but yet they ridiculed Africans while forcing them to accept their inferior societal status under the “Christian” concept of suffering. History has described this concept as the white man’s burden, for if the Africans did not accept Christianity they were killed.

This is one reason European religions — on behalf of missionaries and religious leaders — facilitated Europe’s occupation of Africa. This is a factual occurrence whether it was the Dutch Reform Church of South Africa, which overtly sanctioned apartheid or the Catholic enterprises at Goree, and continued such on the shores of North America and the new world. Missionaries taught Africans that it was the will and desire of God for them to suffer oppression, discrimination and exploitation.

Up until this day, albeit their are many churches and even African specific denominations such as in the Methodist Church, the same belief orientation exist in mind, practices and teachings of ministers ordained in the christian faith. The simple truth is that there is a historical fact that what is employed to provide salvation has mentally been used to make us slaves. Not to mention that the current state of the church seems to serve the pockets and privilege of the minister more than the flock that they attend to.

As a people it is difficult to refute that the Christianity that many of us practice now was forced upon us by the Dutch, Portuguese, French and English, and that the terms Christian, European, free, and white were synonymous. We can see this linage clearly both in the Scripture and the laws of this great nation as well as the increased visibility of white supremacists and Aryan nationalists cloaked under the guise of Christian identity.

The black church seems to have lost its way over the centuries since many of its teachings, although espoused from biblical origins, often were in contradiction to the state and church it represented. Today, as in past, it is not a bastion of religious humility, but rather a expansive commercial, industrial and financial entity that is devoted to wealth accumulation over the benefit of self-determination, free thinking and personal empowerment of the people it claims to represent.