I cannot, in truth, begin to dive into this week’s readings without comparing them to the wonderful article I read in the space between last week’s class and today. While reading how Hammon believes that “[God] has commanded us to obey, and we ought to do it cheerfully and freely” (Sernett 36), I could not help but draw parallels to the article written by Ta-Nehisi Coates in the October 2017 Issue of The Atlantic.

In his analysis of the election of Donald Trump, he relates several of his points to the myth of a disillusioned white working-class rallying together to vote for Trump. Why, Coates argues, is it not natural for black working-class voters to have turned to Trump as an alternative, people who have also suffered in an economic downturn? It is because of a racism that is only considered “incidental to his rise” (Coates). Coates divulges that “indeed, the panic of white slavery lives on in our politics today. Black workers suffer because it was and is our lot. But when white workers suffer, something in nature has gone awry.”

Parallels to the readings this week abound. In Raboteau’s reading, we see the flickers of recognizing African-Americans as human beings, however human beings who are enslaved, are shut down by white slaveowners who are terrified of the equivalency. They consider it an insult to regard these people as, well, people. And thus, the egalitarian nature of the Christianity they so feared passing to their slaves was perverted to ensure that Afro-Americans could never construe themselves as equals to Euro-Americans.

The reading by Raboteau (sp?) for this week was extremely interesting but, as per usual, the thing that really caught my eye was the part of the reading that mirrors current events. That is to say, the pages in part one that dealt with Christians who owned slaves in the 1700s.
The overarching mindset seemed to me before this reading and honestly still appears to be “we will use literally any argument that allows us to dehumanize people we want to use.” If the slaves are pagans, then they deserve to be overworked. If they are Christians, they will allow themselves to be overworked or they aren’t really Christians. If they’re animals, then God created them to be overworked. If they’re men, see above pagan thought process.
Coming from an evangelical (and notably white) Christian background, you’re supposed to save everyone you can. So it’s honestly rather impressive the ability of some to ignore people’s humanity in favor of profit. And this still happens. Thankfully the people who think of, say, black people as animals are now considered radicals and white supremacists, and not generally “that nice man next door.” However, I’m willing to bet that almost everyone has a relative or at least knows someone who thinks that “homeless people deserve to be homeless because they aren’t willing to find a job and make things better for themselves” or “people who are on welfare are on welfare because they want to be on welfare.” The fundamental ideas behind these beliefs are “they’re not like you and me, so they don’t deserve the life we have.” In a similar vein, you get the idea that because evolution isn’t Christian, it shouldn’t be taught in schools, and we can only celebrate Christian religious holidays– anything else and you need to ask off special and probably miss something that a Christian most certainly wouldn’t have to miss. “Those filthy non-Christians don’t deserve an education, or they only deserve one that aims to convert them.” The foundation of all of these beliefs is that the Bible is mutable (when I choose to let it be, don’t get it twisted and think that you can just say the Bible means what you want it to), but we didn’t choose it to be interpreted this way, this is the way it’s always been and God has finally revealed to us his truth, again. The entire foundational belief is warped in a way that’s almost impossible to decipher, even for someone who was raised a conservative Christian. When the Bible is mutable (not for you, but for God’s purpose that just happens to have always been this way *and* align perfectly with my generally bigoted belief system), you can mistreat slaves because they’re pagans or maybe not even human. You can ignore the homeless, the widows and orphans, because they chose their life of sin and God probably said nothing about helping sinners. You can deny people an education or shame them for their beliefs, because that’s probably Biblical.
I can’t think of a way to conclude this, so uh. End angry rant here.

In the Hammon chapter, I was confused by the calmness of being a slave that he possessed. He seemed so into wanting to make sure that he pleased his master, I kind of understand that because if he works hard he might not get treated so bad. But he believed that being a good slave would make the master also good. And that part just confused me. I did understand what he meant when he mentioned how old slaves would not know how to take care of themselves. Although, I believe that they would to a certain extent. They would be skilled in what they normally do everyday and that could be enough for them to have a job. What got me the most was that Hammon did not want to be free. That just stumped me. The thought of a slave not wanting to be freed is almost unheard. I have heard about slaves that were kind of okay with slavery, but not ones that did not want to be free.

This was one of the more enjoyable sections to read in the additional reading this week. Again, I am left somewhat speechless over the amount of information about African American life and realities that we are not taught in school regardless of our race. It is new to learn that slave owners did not want to convert their slaves on the grounds of dehumanizing them. However, what is not traditionally expressed within our educational system is this rather ironic reality. We are all familiar with the creation story. It is because of the impulse of Eve, that humans to understand the concept of free-will. By disobeying the word of God, man then became self-aware (i.e. being naked 27/4 is not really the coolest thing.) Take this concept and apply it to the minds of slave-owners. Raboteau notes how slaveholders were also motivated not to Christianize their salves, because it would change the chain of power. By allowing their slaves to be religiously educated, they would then have a higher self-respect for themselves. And their free-will would also be heightened. We educated throughout high school that slaves had no deeper purpose then to work. We have it drilled into us that all masters hated their slaves. As we have seen, the reality was literally not so black and white. There is a famous quote that goes something like this, “Knowledge is power.” By denying education, slave holders were set on the idea that if slaves were kept in the dark, they would to some degree be dumber. This mindset implied that slaves were not born with average intelligence, they were too far gone to even be considered for religious education. This brings up an old debate. Are we born with basic intelligence, or is everything we know instructed? Do we all have a set limit of capacity for all things in life, or is everything constantly evolving?

Ps. This  made me think in a different light. Maybe you will too.

In terms of other people’s views, I’m usually fairly tolerant but Jupiter Hammon in chapter 4 of African American Religious History had an ideology that I simply couldn’t agree with. I understand that he took a passive, forgiving approach(which isn’t wrong at all) but it seems quite skewed from my perspective. He speaks on his “brethren”, stated on page 35, as if they are unable to survive without the cruel mistreatment of their oppressors. Hammon also states that a slave’s master is only cruel and abusive if the servant doesn’t freely obey them which triggered me the most. First, it’s difficult for enslaved people to freely(oxymoron) obey someone who stripped them of everything they have. Second, his thought process is like saying victims of domestic violence wouldn’t be beaten if they simply complied with their partner.

As I was reading Jupiter Hammon’s “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York,” I began to feel as if I was reading work by Booker T.  Washington. Hammon’s ideas of slaves obeying their masters are critically what Washington stood for. Washington urged slaves to accept discrimination and focus on improving their education rather than their political status. Hammon urged slaves to be grateful for the situation they were in, making the accusation that it was God’s will. How are men’s vacuous, intolerant ways doings of God? I understand the concept of what Hammon was trying to illustrate, but the manner in which it was proclaimed was an offense to God; the same goes for Washington. The idea that slaves obeying the masters to eventually make them feel wrong is a long stretch that has no guarantee of occurring. The fault with the demeanor of both Washington and Hammon is that it empowered the white population to continue mistreating enslaved individuals and did not take the feelings of slaves into consideration.  I personally was disgusted and appalled by the writing of Jupiter Hammon, as I was when I first learned about Booker T. Washington.

I won’t lie, I found this week’s reading just a little dry. In comparison to last week’s readings in Sernett, there was a lot of repetition and the same underlying idea in every chapter. That’s to be expected I guess, but reading three accounts of people telling slaves the exact same things: that they are sinners, must repent, and serve god in order to be free in heaven, wasn’t all that interesting.

However, one connection that I made early on was that it seemed that the black preachers were more successful in converting and christianizing slaves. This was later on confirmed in Catechesis and Conversion, and was especially noticeable during The Great Awakening. It seems pretty obvious that slaves were more likely to be converted by people that they shared at least basic commonality with, but it’s something I’ve never learned or heard about.

A part of Raboteau’s reading was quite thought-provoking. He wrote that the “history of religious instruction of slaves involved three parties: planters, missionaries, and slaves” (Raboteau, 120). The missionaries seem explanatory enough, though later in the same paragraph he remarked that “pagan slaves” were brought to “Christian disciples,” an unusual change from the traditional “disciple sent out with the gospel to the pagans.” While Christians had been instructed to spread the Word to all by Jesus in Mark 16:15, these New World, American Christians put their fear of “different” people over their fear of God. Some would consider that a failure. Cotton Mather, famed Puritan theologian, claimed that people who didn’t see Africans and African-Americans as neighbors and brothers were ignorant. Africans and African-Americans had humanity, and he daringly said they had an “equal right with other men” (Raboteau, 101). Mather authored The Negro Christianized.

I suppose the part that strikes me is the idea that the planter–essentially a slave’s master and boss–had such a role in the religious life of a slave. Today a boss having a say in what religion you practice, or how you practice, is almost unheard of. It goes against the United States Constitution and the First Amendment. I understand that in this era of American history, Africans and African-Americans were not seen as citizens, and in some parts, not even considered human beings. But a majority of the colonists had left Europe to escape religious persecution and the overbearing hands of kings and queens who were considered to be forcing their religious beliefs onto their subjects. But white slave-owning planters had turned around and were doing the same thing, in a country espousing religious toleration and pluralism (on paper, at least).

So how can, ethically, someone who feared persecution of their own religious beliefs, attack the beliefs of another? Someone who didn’t want to be forced to follow the religion of their socio-politic-economic leader (the king) force a religion onto another? Or even yet, as a Christian tasked with spreading the Word of Jesus, deny someone the Word based on their appearance, race, or gender? All of these questions have answers just as complicated, and eventually the Great Awakening created a new era of conversion and a new interpretation and translation of Christianity (Raboteau, 127). Africans and African-Americans, slave or free, began to have more influence in their religious lives. They were learning about Jesus, the Bible, and organizing themselves into congregations. But some congregations were still controlled by those in power, as the emphasis was placed on conversion, not on explaining doctrines. It just seems as though people became too caught up in the politics of religion, and forgot about the theology they claimed to believe.

Reading through A History of African American Christianity it was interesting to see how interwoven perceptions of religion were with race. The Europeans view of the African religions were so dismissive that, unlike Islam, they did not even consider to be a competition or a threat with their attempt to spread Christian beliefs. I was also incredibly surprised and interested by the idea that many whites were unsure about whether African Americans could be real Christians because they were not considered to be fully human.

The part of the reading that I found most intriguing was the account by Francis Le Jau, in chapter three of Milton C. Sernett’s African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness. His account of his church and of his efforts to convert various members of his community was eye-opening as to the difficulties posed by the resistance of society and by the planters within the society (Sernett 25). Francis Le Jau struggled to convert more members to his church despite the resistance, though he faced great trepidation throughout society regarding the effect of educating the slaves. He did manage to convert and baptize a few, a success he recorded with pride in his letters. It was also interesting to read the measures that Francis Le Jau put in place in order to satisfy the reservations of society, such as requiring the consent of the planter who owned the slave, as well as ensuring that he clarified the purpose of baptism before proceeding to baptize the converted new member of the congregation (Sernett 26).

Le Jau’s account stood out from the other readings for this week due to his focus on his religion and spreading it despite the resistance from those around him. The other accounts we read this week involved accounts of native religious practices, as well as the adaptations and changes that happened within those practices, but it was interesting to read of Le Jau’s lack of focus on native religions but rather on the best methods of converting as many people as possible to his church. His clear focus and sense of purpose, which prevailed even over the obstacles before him, provided a fascinating contrast to the perspectives of the other readings.

I found a picture of Francis Le Jau’s church: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/csas200803881/.