African Christians should Lift Jesus Higher than Slavery, Colonialism and Imperialism
A thinking that is gradually surfacing across Africa is that Christianity is a “White Man’s religion” and that the Christian faith is complicit in Africa’s continued dependency on the Global North. The fact is that Christianity is the major faith of Caucasians who enslaved Africans, who colonized the continent and who continue to oppress Africans around the world. As a result of increasing access to information on Africa’s history of oppression, African believers are beginning to question their convictions about the Christian faith. To restore their dignity and authenticity, these African believers consider it progressive to return to the gods of their ancestors or renounce all religious beliefs, thereby reverting to atheism or agnosticism. In this essay, we explore the Person of Jesus as the epicenter of Christianity, as well as the role of Caucasians and their professed variant of Christianity in the enslavement of Africans, the colonization of the continent and the ongoing exploitation of that region and her people in the diasporas.
Slavery, colonialism and the ongoing oppression of African people are now widely condemned as inhumane. Previously, Caucasians and other nationalities believed they were better than Africans genetically. Science has since proven that assertion wrong, establishing, instead, that human life originated in Africa. But for this scientific proof, different ethnicities believed that they all evolved differently and that it is as a result of this evolution that we are different.
Prior to this scientific breakthrough, however, Jesus came with the purpose of reconciling all human beings to one source, their Maker. It was Christ’s intention to open the eyes of humankind to our common ancestry and heritage. In Galatians 3:28, the Bible says: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” What this means in this context is that believers are all equal in the eyes of Jesus Christ.
When his birth was announced to the shepherds, the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:14). Caucasians violated the spirit of peace and goodwill which the birth of Jesus and the commencement of Christianity entailed in their selling of Africans as slaves and treating them most inhumanely,. In forcefully stealing Africa’s resources and using them to develop their own countries, the colonizers who professed Christ broke the very foundation of Christianity, which is peace and goodwill to all human beings.
Jesus came to reconcile human beings to God, and by extension to their true selves and to one another. Prior to Jesus’ coming, humanity was separated from God as a result of the DNA of Adam. When Adam and Eve believed the devil instead of God, it caused their blood to become tainted with the devil’s gene. What you believe affects your DNA: scientists are only beginningto come to the realization of what the Bible wrote thousands of years earlier.One notable name in the field of belief and DNA research is Dr. Bruce Lipton who explains: "You have the gene, but depending on how you live, how you respond, what your belief systems are, the expression of [the]gene could be modified.” Adam and Eve’s genes became corrupted with sin when they believed the devil’s lies that God did not want the best for them by preventing them from eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When they went ahead and ate of that tree, their gene no longer represented what God had in mind when he created humanity. The new gene that Adam and Eve and their descendants had became corrupted genes. The DNA was mutated to hate and oppress others, to be suspicious of everyone and every creation of God and to seek to annihilate.
It was this situation of separation from God and his creation that Jesus came to the world to reverse. Through his birth, death and resurrection, God presented a chance for humanity to be restored to the original DNA blueprint. And what was this blueprint? Man’s original DNA blueprint can be found in Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” It was a DNA that made humanity a mini-god on Earth. We were made in God’s image and likeness, and remember that God is love and God works in unity, as exemplified in the Trinity. Jesus came to restore the God gene in humanity. In Romans 5:10, the Bible says, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
Caucasians who enslaved, colonized and continue to mistreat Africans are way outside of the tenets of Christianity. Jesus came to reconcile humanity, to bring peace and goodwill to all. Human beings will always find ways to justify their desires. Christianity and the Bible have been used to promote the wickedness of the Caucasians who promoted and keep on promoting what Christianity does not represent.
It is important to note that while some part of the Caucasian community was enslaving Africans, another part of that same community rose up strongly against the enslavement based on their Christian convictions. During the colonial era, many Christians within the colonizing powers worked closely and supported Africans in their struggle for Independence. In the ongoing oppression of people of African descent globally, there are also voices from within the Caucasian Christian community who are rising up against any form of oppression of fellow mortals.
Historically speaking, Christianity has been in Africa for centuries before the Caucasians embraced Christianity in Europe. In 2019, a paper published in the prestigious journal Antiquity detailed the discovery of a church in Ethiopia by an international team of scientists. The team unearthed the church situated to the northeast of Aksum, which was the capital of the Aksumite Kingdom. By utilizing radiocarbon dating on relics excavated at the site, the scientists determined that the construction of the church took place during the fourth century A.D. This coincided with the period when Emperor Constantine I of the Roman Empire sanctioned Christianity in 313 CE and subsequently embraced the faith on his deathbed in 337 CE.
The existence of bad teachers and bad schools does not make people renounce education and refuse to either continue with schooling or send their wards to obtain education. Education is acknowledged as a worthy endeavor, which is unfortunately subject to the vagaries of mortals. That is exactly the same with Christianity. The very principle and philosophy upon which Christianity balances is light and love. Yet, mortals have at various times in human history and in contemporary times misinterpreted and misrepresented the faith.
Finally, to experience Jesus Christ is to experience love. It can be cautiously asserted that the majority of African Christians who now consider Christianity a “White man’s religion” have not really experienced Christ in their innermost soul. To know Jesus is to know unconditional love, dignity, compassion and mercy. People who turn their backs on Christianity are most likely those born into Christianity and taken to church by their parents or guardians. They most likely do not have any personal testimony of deep-felt conversion. They lack consistent fellowship and interaction with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Understanding Jesus Christ will lead to lifting Christianity higher than slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism and all the hurts that people of African descent have had to endure at the hands of their fellow mortals.