Reading While Black – 5
In chapter 5, Esau McCaulley discusses the issue of black identity.
For some people, he says, Black Christianity is a false notion, foisted upon black people by their oppressors.
History says otherwise. In the days of the early church, there were three centres of Christianity – Rome, Antioch and Alexandria. It cannot be true, then, that Christianity first came to Africans via slavery. Christianity belongs to Africans as much as it belongs to Europeans. Ethiopia was evangelised in the 4th century, and Nubia (in what we now call the Sudan) by the 6th century.
Old Testament
The call of Abraham (Gen 12:1-3) holds out blessing for all nations. This passage comes hard on the heels of the Table of Nations in Gen 10:1-32. Some of the nations in that list would be Israel’s enemies from time to time; but not for ever. The promise to Abraham holds out hope for universal peace (Isa 2:1-5).
Abraham’s ultimate heir is, of course, Jesus the Christ (Mt 1:1; Gal 3:16).
This trajectory is in stark contrast to the notion that the Genesis text inscribes blackness as cursed. It is impossible to maintain from Gen 9:20-27 that Canaan was the ancestor of all Africans, or that the curse involved blackness of skin, of that the point of the passage was European dominance over African peoples.
Joseph was sold into slavery to Egypt. He rose to great prominence in that country (Gen 41:40). By his Egyptian wife, Asenath, he had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. When the family is finaly reunited, Joseph brings his two sons to Jacob for blessing. Meeting these two half-Egyptian, half-Jewish boys leads Jacob to recall the promise God had made to him years before:
“The sovereign God appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. 48:4 He said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and will multiply you. I will make you into a group of nations, and I will give this land to your descendants as an everlasting possession.’” (Gen 48:3-5)
It is clear, then, that
‘Jacob sees the Brown flesh and African origin of these boys as the beginning of God’s fulfillment of his promise to make Jacob a community of different nations and ethnicities, and for that reason he claims these two boys as his own. These two boys become two of the twelve tribes of Israel. Egypt and Africa are not outside of God’s people; African blood flows into Israel from the beginning as a fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’
So, by the time of the exodus there was already African blood in the veins of the Israelites. According to Ex 12:38 a ‘mixed crowd’ left Egypt. This probably included people of many different ethnic groups, some of whom would have been black. This is another part of the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham, that he would become the ‘father of many nations’.
Black people, then, are not intruders into the Bible’s story; they are part of that story.
There is, accordingly,
‘a strong link between Abraham and ethnic diversity because God promised to use Abraham to bless the nations and peoples of the earth.’
David, in one of his last written prayers, sets forther a vision for the future government of Israel: a vision where the poor, the needy and the oppressed can turn to the most powerful person in the kingdom for justice (Psa 72:1-4). Indeed, David’s vision extends to the whole world (Psa 72:8; cf. Gen 15:17f).
Psa 72:17 draws directly on the Abrahamic promise in Gen 12:3 –
‘May they use his name when they formulate their blessings!
May all nations consider him to be favored by God!’
All of this is of vital importance, given Jesus’ descent from Abraham and David (Mt 1:1; Mk 10:47; Jn 8:56; Rom 15:8,12). No wonder that, according to the New Testament, the gospel is for all ethnic groups.
God’s vision for his people
‘is not for the elimination of ethnicity to form a colorblind uniformity of sanctified blandness. Instead God sees the creation of a community of different cultures united by faith in his Son as a manifestation of the expansive nature of his grace.’
New Testament
Turning to the New Testament, we find that the way of the cross involves suffering. Mary suffered actual birth pangs in bearing our Lord, and Paul likened his ministry to birth pangs (Gal 4:19). Jesus taught that his disciples must take up their cross to follow him (Mt 10:38; 16:24), and the first physical manifestation of this spiritual reality is found with Simon of Cerene, who came from what we now call Libya. Mark mentions that Simon was the father of Rufus and Alexander, presumably because these were Christian disciples known to his readers. This Rufus might be the same disciple who, along with his mother, is mentioned by Paul in Rom 16:13.
So we see that
‘at the moment in which Christ is reconciling the world to himself on the cross, an African family is making its first steps toward the kingdom.’
The persecution of Christians in the aftermath of Stephen’s death led some to leave Jerusalem. They took the gospel with them (Acts 8:4). One of these was Phillip, whose ministry to the Ethiopean eunuch was another manifestation of God’s concern for all nations (Acts 8:26). It should be noted that the eunuch was reading from Isaiah. This, together with the fact that he had come to Jerusalem ‘to worship’ (Acts 8:27), suggests a deep African connection to the God of the Bible.
It may be significant that the passage which the eunuch was reading refers to God’s servant being denied justice. As a man who was an ‘outsider’ he may have felt a special affinity with the suffering Christ.
Moreover, the eunuch’s conversion may be seen as example of the inversion spoken of by Paul in 1 Cor 1:26-29; of God God choosing what the world despises.
John’s vision
Are Christians meant to be colour-blind? Some have read Martin Luther King’s speech in this way: for he looked forward to a day when people will be judged, not according to “the color of their skin,” but the “content of their character”.
But, for King, African Americans should take pride in their culture and heritage:
“The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation.… The Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, “I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history, however painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents, and I’m not ashamed of that. I’m ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave.” Yes, we must stand up and say, “I’m black, but I’m black and beautiful.” This, this self-affirmation is the black man’s need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him.”
Some claim that Paul irons out all ethnic differences in Gal 3:28 –
“There is no Jew nor Greek, no male and female, there is no slave and free, for you are all one in Christ.”
But few Christians would claim that the gospel eliminates all differences between the two sexes. Moreover, Paul, in calling himself ‘an apostle to the Gentiles’ (Rom 11:13), and declaring his flexibility of methodology regarding the evangelisation of Jews and Gentiles (1 Cor 9:20-23), shows himself to be aware of differences between these two groups of people.
Once again, Paul’s whole point in Galatians is to show, not that ethnic and other differences have been obliterated, but that these differences have no bearing on our acceptance in Christ.
In John’s vision, the only one competent to open the scroll of God’s purposes in history is described in terms of his ethnic identity: he is ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David’ (Rev 5:5).
Again, in the vision of the end, there is ethnic diversity in the description of the redeemed who stand before God’s throne (Rev 7:9-10) –
‘The reference to the multitude calls to mind the promises made to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations. It also evokes the promises made to David that his son would gather and bless the nations of the world by his gracious rule. John mentions four aspects of this multitude. It includes people from every nation, tribe, people, and language. Each in its own way highlights diversity. These distinct peoples, cultures, and languages are eschatological, everlasting. At the end, we do not find the elimination of difference. Instead the very diversity of cultures is a manifestation of God’s glory.’
Colourblindness, then,
‘is sub-biblical and falls short of the glory of God. What is it that unites this diversity? It is not cultural assimilation, but the fact that we worship the Lamb. This means that the gifts that our cultures have are not ends in themselves. Our distinctive cultures represent the means by which we give honor to God. He is honored through the diversity of tongues singing the same song. Therefore inasmuch as I modulate my blackness or neglect my culture, I am placing limits on the gifts that God has given me to offer to his church and kingdom. The vision of the kingdom is incomplete without Black and Brown persons worshiping alongside white persons as part of one kingdom under the rule of one king.’
We conclude from all of this that
‘when the Black Christian enters the community of faith, she is not entering a strange land. She is finding her way home.’