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For centuries humans have looked for a higher power to worship. The question is: Why are there so many religions? Are those religions similar somehow? Even though, religions have some aspects in common – there is a higher power, they believe in a creationist theory, they all have a printed version of their beliefs, they act by faith, among others. The reality of living in a multicultural world influences what people believe and how they manifest it.
Societies have shaped their religions in accordance to what their ancestors believed and what they have experienced in their own reality. One cannot force a person to exercise a religion or assist to Temples that offense his or her culture. Therefore, people find their religion where their personal and spiritual interests are, and not where others what them to be.
Religions have set a precedent for future generations. However, they can also explain the current and actual circumstances under which they were born. That was the case of the Black Church, named like that after the skin color of its founders. The Black Church has played a main role in many societal, economic, and cultural decisions made among dark-skinned people in North America.
The birth of the Black Church lies on the slavery era in America. One can see how slaves were subjected to a religion that they considered strange and foreign. They were forced to attend the religious ceremonies of the white people, where the priests would recommend obeying their landlords and owners. This suggestion would totally oppose to what they had seen about Christianity and its precepts.
The evident juxtaposition between what the spiritual beliefs of the Christianity are and what the preacher would say in the temple set the ground for secret meetings where slaves would practice their religious rituals. Moreover, these secret gatherings became their first manifestations of rebellion years later. The social movement that awakened from those improvised temples is well-known to this day – the Civil Rights Movement.
The birth of The Black Church comes to satisfy a spiritual need, but it also served to fulfill the sense of freedom that black people did not have in that moment .This was due to the fact that the previously slaved people had to learn how to organize their newly-born community, something that the church would help with. As well as, find jobs and evaluate their new condition of citizen instead of property. As soon as the slavery traits finished, the black community grew in a natural way in the United States. This growth allowed the African American people to shape their own version of the Christian religion and the African religion they had inherited from their ancestors.
Therefore, the growing African American Church gained a private space to feel free, even when they still had to work for white people, who underestimated them. The Black Church was and continues to be supported by the idea of freedom, regardless of their regional differences. The combination of these two realities, one telling them they were free, and the other showing them they had to obey their Masters, became the perfect recipe to start thinking differently.
Besides gaining their spiritual identity and space, The Black Church led to greater achievements throughout history. The biggest achievement of The Black Church was literacy. This accomplishment guided the Black Community through their expansion and settlement. A brand-new movement of missioners coming from the four cardinal points dedicated to promote education. They helped build schools exclusively devoted to teach this new community of American citizens how to read and write. Consequently, the interests of the once-slaved population spread out.
Moreover, education gave a new value to the African American community. With the accelerated enlargement of literate African American, new opportunities opened as well. Education benefited the rise of leaders within the black community, who could perfectly represent the ideas of black people in diverse fields such as education, politics, among others. This has intensified in the past years, when “the educational level of both rural and urban clergy has risen considerably over the past fifty years, reflecting in part the desegregation of public education and other social changes”
However, the prominent appearance of black people in the different aspects of society bought confrontation between the white and the black citizens. The first wanted to keep their precepts and laws, while the second were seeking for a revolution of the existing laws. The Black Church held a main position in this part of history. Black preachers invigorated their parishioners to stand strong and do what the Lord wanted them to do.
The social policies promoted by The Black Church helped a big number of black people. However, the ones that had a higher education attainment had their eyes on the injustice under their people was still subjected. The Black Church became a strong institution that helped people ease their subjugation within society.
The Black Church became a unique place where African American citizens shaped their new reality. It helped black people go through all the incendiary moments in their history. But it also represents a turning point in the lives of those who were mistreated for a long time, as it served to opening their eyes and look for a better reality. The Black Church represents a milestone in the way black people saw life, right after their access to education.
Bibliography
Lincoln, C. Eric, and Mamiya, Lawrence H. The Black Church in the African American Experience. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990
Billingsley, Andrew. Mighty Like a River: The Black Church and Social Reform. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Taylor, Robert Joseph, Thornton, Michael C and Linda M. Chatters. “Black Americans’ Perceptions of the Sociohistorical Role of the Church.” Journal of Black Studies 18, no. 2 (1987): 123-138.
