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New York Occasions O-Ed: There Is Glory and God in Our Struggles, by Esau McCaulley (Wheaton; writer, Studying Whereas Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Train in Hope (2020)):
Each February, Black Historical past Month, People interact in a futile try and squeeze into 28 days the historical past of a individuals whose tribulations, contributions and successes are on each web page of the American narrative. For African People, not less than, the wrestle to inform our story and make sense of our place within the American saga by no means recedes from view.
Understanding who we’re and why now we have suffered a lot on this nation is one thing like existential questions that wax and wane, coinciding with the peaks and valleys of anti-Black racism. Are we greater than the identities and labels individuals have given us? Is there extra to our narrative than the whip and the chain?
Some have tried to discover a sense of origin within the remnants of African tradition that survived the center passage and that made their approach into the non secular and social lives of Black communities. Black historical past, we expect, is there, damaged and fragmented, within the spirituals and the blues. Others have pursued a extra direct route, taking DNA checks to seek out their roots. And a few African People are transferring again to the motherland.
Black non secular teams, specifically, have struggled with questions of id and historical past. That’s no shock on condition that some theologians and pastors justified our enslavement by evoking the curse of Ham, saying that African individuals had been predestined to servitude.
This has led to the criticism from inside our communities that Christianity is a white man’s faith. Resisting this concept is a daily characteristic of many preachers’ sermons. They argue that the white supremacy practiced by “Christian” enslavers was a corruption of the faith, not the factor itself.
The Black Hebrew Israelite motion offers African peoples a way of self by claiming the id of the nation of Israel depicted within the biblical texts frequent to Jews and Christians. The group is sort of various in its beliefs and opinions. …
I’m pleased with my connection to the motherland and of the African presence within the biblical narrative.
I’m additionally impressed by the tales which have taken place right here. The disgrace of Black chattel slavery in america is just not hooked up to the descendants of the enslaved. The center passage and the public sale block are usually not issues we did; they had been evils perpetrated towards our ancestors.
There’s glory to be discovered within the struggles of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, James W.C. Pennington, William J Simmons, Jarena Lee and Richard Allen. We come from a individuals who pulled collectively a tradition and a religion out of the mud. Our music, gown, meals and spirituality are a marvel to behold. We don’t want one other historical past to have a way of self or to seek out non secular which means. In line with many abolitionists and later civil rights leaders, God was not simply with the traditional Israelites; he has additionally been with us on our lengthy and winding journey towards the promised land.
Op-Eds by Esau McCaulley:
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https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/02/ny-times-op-ed-there-is-glory-and-god-in-our-struggles.html
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