Down through the years, one thing that I have learned about KNOWLEDGE. It is the only thing that you can give away, and never loose that which you have. So, as we continue this month long celebration of the history of our people, the Lord has placed upon my heart to share with you today some little known facts about the Black Race and our relationship with Jesus.

I grew up during the era when young black men were told that Christianity was a white mans religion and that we would be better served by finding a religion that spoke to the needs of Blacks. At that time the movement was leaning towards Islam with it’s Charismatic leader Elijah Muhammad. The message was that during that era of slavery, White slave owners used Christianity to seduce our fore-parents into submission to the masters authority. To the educated person that philosophical reasoning was very definitely Biblical. After all Jesus is called Lord and Master, and all of His followers are called servants.

The NT Greek word for servant is douloo. Douloo is the verb which means to enslave or to bring into bondage; to become a slave or to become a servant or bondsman. Not only does the Bible call us slaves but it spells out the duties of the slave and that is to serve their Master. That alone can give us some idea that the Word can be wrongly divided. In I Corinthians 7:23 doesn’t it say that we were bought with a price? Maybe this verse taken out of context was the political agitator which took away the guilty conscience of those who place Black men and women on the auction blocks and sold them to the highest bidder.. We all know the stories, of the slave era, as they were communicated to us through various media over which Blacks had no control. There were some communications which charged that Whites were good to their slaves because they were God fearing people.

It was never placed in the history books that these same God fearing people sold slaves as fund-raiser for their Churches, the pay clergy, build edifices, and buy Bibles to send to foreign Countries. Nor how they could break up families, separate parents from their children, all for the sake of the dollar. Nor how they psychologically drove a wedge between a people that would keep them divided, knowing that a house divided against itself cannot stand. As early as 1712, White slave owners were taught to identify and isolate certain differences between the slaves that would keep them under control for at least 300 years. They were to test the women, to see if she would submit to their every desire willingly. Any sign of resistance was to result in a bull whip being used on her naked body until every bit of resistance was gone out of her, taking care not to kill her because of economics. When in complete submission she will train her offspring in their early years to submit to labor when they become of age.

Then they were to destroy the male image from before the females. They’d take the meanest and strongest male, strip him of his clothes in front of all of your other slaves, males, females, and children. Tie each of his legs to a different horse faced in opposite directions, set him on fire and the beat the horses to pull him apart in front of them. After that they would beat the remaining male with a bull whip in front of the females and the children.

The female would then, for fear of her son’s life train him to become mentally weak but physically strong thus making him a sufficient worker. They would breed him to the female, then take him away from her. Whether she has a male child or a female child, either would be raised without a male image in the home. She would then come to know that it was the white male image that was in control. Then the male slave owner would himself impregnate as many Black females as he could to affect the skin tone of her offspring. Those particular offspring of the white male and black female although still black and still slaves would grow up believing that skin complexion and hair texture, made them better than the dark skinned nappy haired slaves. What slavery had accomplished was to set the female before the male, the light skinned before the dark skinned, and a dependency of all slaves upon their Masters.

While this Country advertised itself as a Christian Nation, the institution of slavery undermined this claim. I can truly sympathize with our Black Brethren who have turned to other forms of worship in an attempt to avoid Christianity altogether. If as they have heard, that the Black Man in America received his Religious indoctrination at the hands of White slave masters Christianity should leave a bad taste in their mouths. What needs to be known is that Blacks and Christianity have been a union long before Christianity entered England, Ireland, Sweden, Russia or the United States. Some of the world renowned theologians such as Athanasius, Augustine, St. Cyprian, St Cyrill of Alexandria, and Tertullian were from the region of North Africa. Black African Christians also lived throughout Roman-occupied Europe and West Asia. One incident on record among this population of Black Africans in Europe that was immortalized in art and the canonization of the group leader was the witness of St Maurice and his Theban Legion, a Roman Militia. During the third century these Black Christians were ordered by their captors to deny Christ. They refused and were executed for their faith. The power of their witness so impressed the future European Christians that accounts of their martyrdom were retold for centuries and artistic depictions of the event were made displaying them in the beauty of their Blackness. Around 1457 an African chief named Nomimansa, of the Senegambia area chose the Christian faith over Islam In 1485 the preaching of the Gospel entered into the region known as the Kongo which is in today’s region of Zaire and Angola.

These Kongoese were taught the Christian faith by Missionaries. By 1491 the King of the Kongo along with his Queen and their first born Alfonso were baptized at Mpanzu, the locale of the first Christian Church in that region. Alfonso became king and reigned over the Kongo from 1506 to 1543 and it is on record that he served Christ throughout his life. Those who recorded this history said that this King sought to share his great love for God and the Word of God that he himself would preach the gospel to the people. In Europe African Christians distinguished themselves. One of these was a West African named Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein. who was enslaved as a child. By 1741 he was taken by his slave holder to be educated in Holland. He completed his college education at the University of Leyden by the age of 25. Afterwards he was ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church. Among his many accomplishment he translated many Christian texts into the African Language of Fanti. What I’m trying to tell you, is that Christianity and Blacks began long before the slave ships brought them to America where not only would a Nation divide a people, but a people would also divide a Nation.

Slavery was not only unjust but it undermined God’s creation. It didn’t rob a man of his privileges, it robbed him of himself. It didn’t load him with burdens, but made him a beast of burdens. It didn’t restrain his freedom, but subverted it. It did not curtail his rights, it abolished them altogether. It did not inflect personal injury, it annihilated personalities, uncreating a man and making him a thing. Our fore parents endured much at the hands of slave owner, but their faith in Jesus kept them moving on They believed that just as God had delivered Israel out of slavery in the land of Egypt, surely He would deliver them out of slavery in America. They knew that that the Jews were enslaved because God’s judgement was upon a people for their collective sins or transgression of His law. They knew that their plight was not the same as the plight of Israel, because they had done no sin to bring about their enslavement. But that slavery was an evil condition from which God would one day deliver them.

They trusted God more than they feared all that the slave masters could do to them. They knew that He was acting in their world, because many received healing when medicine and medical attention was denied them. And many run away slaves got away because God blinded the eyes of those whom were on patrols. Their respective African ethnicity’s, Angolan, Kongoese, Yoruba, Dan, and Ashanti, were formed into an identity that became known as African American. Their love for Jesus endowed them with power to love one another and especially to love themselves. Through their music which became known as Spirituals, they communicated a full range of human experiences, joy and sorrow, delight and anger, praise and fear, anguish and love, and offered it unto God. Regardless of what some have said, Black people did not receive their religious indoctrination at the hands of white slave owners.