African American Christianity

African American Christianity

  • Submitted By: jackhwang
  • Date Submitted: 04/27/2013 10:03 AM
  • Category: Religion
  • Words: 1525
  • Page: 7
  • Views: 1

African-American Christianity
The African-Americans in the U.S. society of the nineteenth century played the significant and rather specific role, basing on the peculiarities of relations between masters and slaves, on the details of the Civil War, and on the features of the abolitionist movement. The principles of slavery depended on the ideology of racism and the masters’ fear of the possible black rebellions for freedom. That is why it was necessary to influence slaves at the level of their spiritual life in order to prevent rebellions and oppositions. Christianity with its significant concept of obedience could contribute to the development of the necessary ideology and slaves’ vision of their reality. A lot of African-American slaves were forced to adopt Christianity as their religion because it provided the opportunities for masters to strengthen the control over slaves. However, the development of African-American Christianity had many characteristic features, depending on the Christian principles of obedience and equality which provoked a kind of opposition for developing the slaves’ spirituality according to the masters’ views. Although slaves adopted Christianity which in many cases was forced by their masters, the African-Americans used the advantages of the process to support their identity with the help of spirituals and utilized the ideas of the Christian freedom to participate in the abolitionist movement as it was stated in the most famous slave narratives.
The concept of slavery is historically connected with the notion of racism in the United States. The African-American slaves were traditionally discussed as the persons who could not have any rights because of their dependent position of being the masters’ property. That is why slaves should obey their masters without any opposition to this norm or rule. The principles of Christianity are based on the idea of obedience, and those clergymen who tried to convert slaves to this religion focused...

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