One of the many things that irritate me about some individuals is their unwillingness to search for truth and knowledge in an age where knowledge is literally at ones fingertips. This is especially true about religion and the many traditions we practice without a second thought to why we do what we do or believe what we believe. Now, before I begin this blogging adventure into religion and spirituality, I must declare that yes...I am a Christian and believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins.
Now that that has been declared and is now out of the way, one of the things that grinds my gears to no end is when people state that African Americans have adopted the religion of there slave master...
This is not to say that many religions practiced such as Uduk, Massai, and Dogon were forcibly replaced with Christianity. That is not what this post is about. This post is about the argument that we as African American people were given the religion of our slave owners.Around 300 AD,King Ezana decreed Ethiopia (then called Aksum) to be a Christian nation, centuries before the first slave was bought to the "New World." Despite that fact, did we all miss the scriptures in Acts when an Ethiopian eunuch was baptized shortly after the death of Christ and went to spread the Gospel before the Apostle Matthew made it there?
As it stands for many African Americans, it is easier to find a kid that doesn't like electronics than it is to find your lineage unless you get genetic testing and even then, it is a feat to find direct decedents that can be traced back to the many nations where our peoples were enslaved. It is a disservice to our diversity, strength, and ingenuity as a group of people to make blanket statements about religion, beliefs, and spirituality. I can no more trace my ancestry back more than 5 generation like many African Americans than the next, so how can I make the statement that my ancestors before me never served the God I serve, despite their country of origin?NBG
