The Black Church and Black History Month

For forty-eight weeks out of every year Black churches in the Diaspora and on the African continent regale people of African ancestry with spiritually motivating tales drawn from a book that was written primarily by Jews and for Jews. The Bible, after all, is the story of Yahweh and his dealings with the descendants of Abraham. While it is true that there is a shift in emphasis in the New Testament of the Bible, Jews still feature prominently in the second segment of the Bible.

For all of its universality, I have searched in vain to find a book in the New Testament that was addressed to the Ethiopians, or the Ashanti, or the Zulus or the Yoruba. To all intents and purposes, every week, Black people go to church to hear about books and letters that were not written by us, to us, or for us. While it cannot be denied that people of African ancestry have been benefited by their exposure to the Bible, the question must be raised about whether the Creator of the universe has not also communicated directly with our ancestors on the continent of Africa and in the Diaspora.

It stands to reason that if the Creator is omnipresent, then, he is not limited to contact with just one nation or group of people. The same omnipresent spirit of the Creator that communicated with the Jewish patriarchs and prophets certainly did not lack the facilities to communicate with our ancient Egyptians, Ethiopians, Nubians, Ashanti, Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba, and Zulu ancestors. Africans, being some of the most religious people on the planet, could not help but have attract the attention of the Creator.

After all, Africa was the continent that served as the incubator for the supposed chosen people referred to in the Bible as the children of Israel. Much to the chagrin of racist European scholarship, Egypt is still to this day in Africa. It has not moved to the Middle East, or to Europe, or to any other Caucasian or Semitic location on the planet. Brother Moses was born in Africa and had the good sense to marry a Cushite or Ethiopian woman. Joseph also had the same good sense to marry an African woman.

This may come as a shock to many Black church goers but in addition to the cloud and pillar of fire that led the Israelites through the wilderness, the Israelites had the expert guidance of a Cushite by the name of Hobab who according Numbers 10:29-33 acted as eyes for the Israelites in the wilderness. Another very interesting bit of Black Bible trivia is the African connection of the only two men above the age of twenty who did not die in the wilderness and were permitted to enter the Promise land of Canaan. Caleb was a Kenite just like Hobab, Jethro and Zipporah while Joshua was a descendant Asenath, the Egyptian wife of Joseph.

Anyone familiar with African spiritual science would know that Africans are all about seeking divine guidance and about catching the spirit. There are spiritual specialists known as the eye and mouth of the gods in traditional African spirituality. Africans resort to these spiritual specialists when they require divine guidance. It is unfathomable to think that the great Creator would have bypassed African divination completely while responding favorably to Jewish divination in the form of the Urim and the Thummim.

Jesus is on record saying that his father would not give his children a stone if they ask for bread or a serpent if they ask for fish. We can therefore rest assured that when our African ancestors went to the Creator asking for bread and fish, they did not receive a stone or a serpent. Africans like the Jews and all other people on the face of the earth received divine guidance that was specific to their needs.

There is a body of divine revelation that can be found within the global Black collective past and present. In the past much of this revelation was passed on through oral tradition, through proverbs, and through the myths and stories told by the African elders. In modern times much of our divine revelation is in written form. From the bosom of the global Black collective men and women have arisen with healing in their wings for the children of Africa.

As the month of February approaches Black churches should already be planning for a shift away from the perennial Jewish and European theological fodder towards a more Afro-centric agenda if only for the month of February. The stupendous problems facing people of African ancestry demand that Black religious leaders resist the urge to continue copying and pasting information and solutions that are better suited to the Jewish and European experience and instead dive into the body of Black revelation that was given to us to help heal the hurt of the Black collective.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro- Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of Black Civilization: Making Africa and the Caribbean Great Again.