The Afro-American Church

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The Afro-American Church

• Background
• ATR on Africas Gold Coast
• Spirits
• Supreme Creator
• Nature reveals God
• God cares how we live
• How much ATR survived?
• Much (Herskovits)
• Little (Frazier)

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The Afro-American Church

• Slave trade
• Numbers
• 7-10 million taken
• 6-7 million arrive
• 450,000 in British North America
• Triangular trade

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The Afro-American Church
Rum
Molasses
Slaves
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The Afro-American Church

• Slave trade
• Numbers
• 7-10 million taken
• 6-7 million arrive
• 450,000 in British North America
• Triangular trade

• Middle Passage
• 30 casualty rate
• 600 potential profit

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The Afro-American Church

• Christian justification of slavery
• Natural law
• OT
• NT
• Augustine
• Whitefield

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The Afro-American Church

• Christian war against slavery
• Quakers
• Congregationalists
• Samuel Hopkins
• Methodists
• Social forces against slavery
• Great humanitarian impulse
• Liberal political thought

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The Afro-American Church

• First wave of abolitionism 1750-1815 Slavery is
  unfortunate

Washington sure but imperceptible abolition
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The Afro-American Church

• Economic forces supporting slavery
• 1730-60 new machines
• New markets
• Cotton gin
• King Cotton
• 1791 5 million/year
• 1826 307 million/year
• 1820 22 of US export
• 1857 57 of US export
• Value of slaves skyrockets

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The Afro-American Church
Cotton exports grow from 5m in 1791 to 307 m in
1826
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The Afro-American Church
1822
Cottons market share grows from 22 in 1822
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The Afro-American Church
1857
to 57 in1857
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The Afro-American Church

• Christian war against slavery
• Second wave 1835-65 Slavery is sin
• Wendall Phillips
• Jesus and Washington

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The Afro-American Church

• Christian war against slavery
• Second wave 1835-65 Slavery is sin
• Wendall Phillips
• Jesus and Washington

• W. L. Garrison
• Splits in churches

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The Afro-American Church

• How A-A became Christians
• Cotton Mather The Negro Christianized
• Methodists Baptists
• Targeted AA
• Simple Gospel message
• Anti-slavery stands
• Full membership for AA
• 1790 12 of AA were church members

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The Afro-American Church

• As the Methodists came up in the world, the world
  came up in the Methodists and they ( others)
  began to discriminate against AA.
• AA form their own denominations

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The Afro-American Church

• 4 post Civil War options
• Stay in southern church w/ inferior status
• Join northern AA denomination
• AME
• AMEZ
• Join new denomination (CME)
• Join northern white denomination

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The Afro-American Church

• AA church served 2 functions
• For Whites it kept AA down
• 1667 Virginia law Baptism does not liberate
• Only lower-class denominations evangelized
• Simplified Christianity
• Morality (Keep rules ? Go to heaven)
• Eschatology
• Church politics diffused political concern
• Anti-intellectual tradition in church hurt
  education

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The Afro-American Church

• For AA it was a way to escape White oppression
• Concern with freedom
• Identification with Israel in Egypt
• Promotion of escape
• Actual
• Underground railway
• Slave insurrections led by pastors
• Final
• Spiritual

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The Afro-American Church

• Emotional outlet
• Social
• Recognition and prestige
• Fellowship
• Stability
• Present
• Some say AA church is dying
• Less oppression
• Fewer attenders

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The Afro-American Church

• Since it no longer fulfills its old role it has
  assumed new roles
• Secular and political
• Adam Clayton Powell
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Jesse Jackson
• Middle class and accomodationist
• Storefront
• Cultic
• Revolutionary
• Irrelevant

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The Afro-American Church

• Revival in the AA church
• Multicultural theology
• Bill Pannell, Tom Skinner, John Perkins, Eugene
  Rivers
• Inter-racial partnerships
• Multicultural congregations
• Christians model reconcilation

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The Afro-American Church

• Dangers
• Whites cling to enculturated Christianity
• AA become impatient, judgmental, self-righteous
• Both AA Whites might remain individualistic,
  accomodationist, and other-worldly