Part 2 — Christianity Is Not the White Man’s Religion
(Even Though Whites Tried to Make It Theirs)
Introduction
If Part 1 reclaimed Christianity’s African origins, Part 2 reveals how that same faith—once rooted in Africa—was distorted through conquest and colonization, and yet redeemed by those it sought to enslave. From the first colonial pulpits to the cotton fields, Scripture became a battleground between two interpretations—one defending bondage, the other proclaiming freedom.
1. The Bible Under Slavery and Colonial Christianity
From the 1600s onward the Bible was the most circulated book in the Atlantic world. White planters and clergy cited texts such as “Slaves, obey your masters” (Eph 6:5) and the “curse of Ham” (Gen 9:25–27) to anchor a racial hierarchy they called divine. Yet enslaved Africans heard in those same pages a God who breaks chains. Their theology was experiential rather than doctrinal—rooted in the cry of the oppressed, not the commentary of the powerful.
2. For Those Who Could Read: A Subversive Literacy
a. Hidden Reading and Alternative Hermeneutics
Reading the Bible in secret cabins or by flickering candlelight was an act of rebellion. Literate Blacks like Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, and later Frederick Douglass discovered that the Scriptures, when read whole, refuted their masters’ sermons.
When they opened Exodus 5:1—“Let my people go”—they heard not Pharaoh’s command but God’s solidarity.
They practiced what scholars now call a hermeneutic of liberation, centuries before the term existed.
b. Biblical Literacy as Power
To read was to resist. Douglass wrote:
“Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference.”
His mastery of Scripture turned the oppressor’s book into an indictment of hypocrisy and birthed a new theology of freedom.
3. For Those Who Could Not Read: The Oral Theology of the “Invisible Institution”
In hush-harbor worship and the rhythmic cadences of spirituals, the illiterate fashioned their own Bible of memory and song.
When white preachers read “Servants, be obedient,” Black congregants answered in coded refrain:
“Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt land,
Tell old Pharaoh, Let my people go.”
Egypt meant slavery, Canaan meant freedom, Pharaoh the master, and Moses or Jesus the divine deliverer.
Their oral Scripture preserved the essence of the gospel—the God who hears the groans of the enslaved.
4. Two Theologies, One Bible: A Faith Divided
| White Hermeneutic (Colonial/Slaveholding) | Black Hermeneutic (Liberation/Resistance) |
|---|---|
| Obedience, submission, hierarchy | Deliverance, equality, divine justice |
| Slavery as God-ordained | Slavery as sin against creation |
| Salvation deferred to heaven | Liberation demanded on earth |
| Literal and selective reading | Contextual and prophetic reading |
| Identified with imperial Israel | Identified with enslaved Israel under Pharaoh |
This theological divide birthed the enduring Black Church tradition—Christianity read through tears and yet radiant with hope.
5. Contrasting Interpretations of Key Texts
| Passage | Slaveholder’s Reading | Black Christian Re-Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Exodus 1–15 | Israel’s bondage a moral tale about patience and obedience. | God sides with the enslaved; Pharaoh is the master; deliverance is historical and inevitable. |
| Luke 4:18 | “Spiritual” liberation only; comfort for souls, not bodies. | Jesus inaugurates real social deliverance—freedom for the prisoners means emancipation now. |
| Philemon | Proof that Paul condoned slavery. | Paul appeals to love, not law; the gospel transforms a slave into a brother. |
| Ephesians 6:5 | Divine command for slaves to obey. | Instruction to existing servants, not approval of bondage; the gospel undermines ownership itself. |
| Revelation 18 | Judgment on pagan Rome. | Prophecy of Babylon’s fall—God’s coming judgment on slaveholding America. |
Each text became a mirror: the oppressor saw order, the oppressed saw Exodus.
6. The Prophetic Lineage of Liberation
Early Black Preachers (1600s–1700s)
Rebecca Protten (1718–1780): Afro-Caribbean evangelist of equality in Christ.
George Liele (1750–1820) and Andrew Bryan (1737–1812): founders of the first Black Baptist congregations in the Americas.
Richard Allen (1760–1831) and Absalom Jones (1746–1818): founders of the AME and first Black Episcopal churches—declaring independence from white control.
Revolutionary Prophets (1776–1831)
Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, David Walker, and Nat Turner read the Bible as a summons to holy resistance: “The Lord will deliver His people.”
Abolitionist Preachers (1830s–1865)
Henry Highland Garnet, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Maria W. Stewart, Amanda Berry Smith, Samuel Ringgold Ward—each turned Scripture into public protest.
Post-Emancipation Prophets (1865–Early 1900s)
Bishop Henry McNeal Turner: proclaimed “God is a Negro.”
Ida B. Wells-Barnett: anti-lynching crusader motivated by divine justice.
Alexander Crummell: theologian linking faith with racial uplift and Pan-African vision.
Across centuries these voices prove that, though whites tried to claim ownership of the gospel, the truest heirs of its liberating message were the enslaved and their descendants.
7. The Legacy of a Distinctive Reading
By the 19th century this counter-reading had matured into a full tradition—what scholars now call African American biblical hermeneutics.
It seeded abolitionism, nourished the Black Church, and later inspired Howard Thurman, James Cone, Katie Cannon, and other theologians of the 20th century.
The same book that once sanctioned chains became the scripture of the civil-rights anthem and the creed of liberation theology.
Conclusion — Reclaiming the Faith
Christianity was used to enslave, but it could never be owned by enslavers.
Black readers and hearers wrested the Bible from their captors’ grip and heard again the God of Exodus and Calvary—the God who delivers.
Their songs and sermons declared:
“Pharaoh’s army got drowned.”
“Before I’d be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave.”
Part 2 completes the argument begun in Part 1:
Christianity is not the white man’s religion.
It is the faith of those who found in its pages a God who breaks yokes, a Christ who suffers with the oppressed, and a Spirit that still whispers freedom.
Notes
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845), 117.
Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 212.
James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 23.
Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (Boston: Beacon Press, 1949), 32.
Maria W. Stewart, Productions of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart (Boston: Friends of Freedom, 1835), 14.
Suggested Reading
Blount, Brian K. Then the Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001.
Cone, James H. A Black Theology of Liberation. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1970.
———. God of the Oppressed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1975.
Douglas, Kelly Brown. The Black Christ. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994.
Hopkins, Dwight N. Down, Up, and Over: Slave Religion and Black Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.
Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Stewart, Maria W. Productions of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart. Boston: Friends of Freedom, 1835.
Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited. Boston: Beacon Press, 1949.
Williams, Delores S. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993.
Wright, Walter F. The Ethical Dimensions of the American Revival: The Theology of Freedom in the Black Church Tradition. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1982.