Black Christianity

Christianity under Slavery

During the early history of North American slavery, the British colonists rarely attempted to convert African Americans to Christianity. Many slaveholders feared that baptized slaves would get the idea that “freedom in Christ” would imply freedom from bondage, and some believed that Africans were “savages” who lacked the intellectual capacity to benefit from the Christian religion.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, slaveholders generally were endorsing the idea of Christianizing the slaves, at least in theory. Proponents of evangelical plantation missions, such as Charles Colcock Jones of Georgia, argued that conversion would make the slaves more honest, obedient, and dependable.

The majority of enslaved African Americans enthusiastically accepted selective portions of the Christian religion. In Africa, beliefs similar to basic Christian doctrines had been quite common, including notions of a supreme deity, an afterlife, good and bad spirits, water baptism, and communal worship services. African Americans found it easy to harmonize Christian doctrines, such as Jesus Christ's divinity, with preexisting beliefs, while at the same time ignoring many of the ideas of white Christians. Because few slaves had opportunities to become literate, they were not much interested in theological disputes about issues such as the trinity, biblical inspiration, and church organization.

Most scholars agree that African American Christians did not abandon all of the religious ceremonies and folk beliefs that had existed in Africa. For instance, they continued to dance and sing in the African style of “call and response,” conducted nighttime funeral rituals, used drums when permitted, and frequently appealed to traditional spirits. Some also relied on the magical powers of incantations and amulets. Such quasi-religious folkways, of course, were not unusual among poor whites, especially in isolated regions such as Appalachia. The syncretistic religions now called Voodoo and Santeria were not as prevalent as in the Caribbean islands, but such beliefs and practices could be found in southern Louisiana and other places.

The religion of the slaves in America combined “otherworldly” and practical concerns. For instance, educator Booker T. Washington and many others observed that spiritual songs referring to salvation had connotations of both secular freedom and an afterlife. Although promises of a heavenly reward probably encouraged some slaves to passively accept their fate, religion played a major role in preventing their total dehumanization and providing a basis to hope for a better future in the here-and-now.

Religion and Abolitionism

African American slaves interpreted the Bible in ways that were quite different from the interpretations of conservative white churches. Like oppressed peoples everywhere, African Americans were particularly attracted to the Old Testament stories of liberation, especially the story of Moses leading his people out of bondage in Egypt. They ignored biblical passages that endorsed slavery and concentrated instead on those portions of the Bible that explicitly or implicitly taught that people were equal in the sight of God. They interpreted Jesus' teaching about an imminent Kingdom of God as referring to both spiritual matters and the secular order, and they found comfort in passages such as, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

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