I’ve got to say, when I first began to read Miles Mark Fischer, I was a little confused as to why he called these other churches “cults”. To me, they seemed like normal churches, which made me question what his definition of a cult was. I was like, “Did the word cult not have a negative connotation then ? Or is this a reflection of the more mainstream religions aversion to Pentecostalism?” It wasn’t until I got to the Father Divine reading that I realized that his following at least, reminded me of the current definition of a cult. Although there were some parallels between what I would call a church today and the ‘cults’ of that era, which is a little disconcerting to say the least, there were way more differences that the first reading simply didn’t showcase. But the Father Divine reading creeped me out just a little.

Second, I would like to say that I’m kind of a little shook by the word niggeritions. It sounds like something my little brother would say, but was actually said by a grown man to describe the actions of other black people. I’d also like to give a fun fact. I noticed the name Nimrod in the Rabbi Mathews reading, and remembered that supposedly, it’s come to be equated with the word idiot today because Bugs Bunny, trying to be sarcastic, refereed to Elmer Fudd as “Nimrod,” who was described as a mighty hunter in the bible. Obviously people, not knowing the biblical character, missed the sarcasm and thought it was just another word for idiot. I’m not sure how true the story is, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Third, I’d like to say that I have actually never read about black jewish people until today. I heard about black muslims, but never black jews. I’m not sure I completely followed the argument as to why black people are true Israelites, but it’s an interesting line of thought that I might read over again.

Chapter 50 of the Sernett reading was very interesting to me. I wanted to have more information about Father Divine and how he came to have such a passionate following. He’s obviously a very moving speaker, but the same could be said about many pastors or priests who did not procure their own followings. The text mentioned that people began to believe that he was God incarnate when a judge who sentenced him for disturbing the peace died unexpectedly of a heart attack. However, this is not so outlandish that it would be likely to be seen as anything more than a coincidence. I would be interested to know if he had promoted himself as God before this incident, and what kind of religious doctrine he put forth for his followers to abide by.

Miles Mark Fischer take on cults was initially surprising to me, because of the connotation that this term usually carries. And Fischer is certainly aware of this term, but uses it throughout the text in an attempt to reclaim and re-contextualize the word. He is critical and concerned of the formal attitude of the traditional church, which he thinks sometimes are too steeped in the idea of tradition and organization that it does not do enough to really speak to the people and address social issues. The cults are not held by these chains of bureaucracy and consequently seem to be able to do much more and are more willing to challenge the statue quo. Fischer reminds his reader that at some point every religious organization was a cult, and that people should focus more on the core ideals of an organization rather than whether they are considered official by an authority.

The cults and the sects had to fill in for fighting for the black people to have their own religion after Garveynism ended and black denominations have yet to still be reached out to America. I really liked how the cults and the sects have filled the void of taking over of what the back people believed in. The black people wanted to have their own religion of Christianity and to me, the cults and the sects also started filling black people into the negro churches. The negro churches started to grow because of numerous black people filling up the negro churches. I also like how the cults and the sects had not just black people but also people of mixed races helping them out. I founded cool that even women contributed and had leadership roles in helping black people have their own religion of Christianity. Even though some leaders leading their cult or sect died, people in the cults and sects still keep pushing to fight for what the black people believed in.

Compared to the chapters assigned previously throughout the year, chapter 49 of Sernett’s  “African American Religious History” was definitely one of my favorites. African American religion is often described as just Christian values mixed in with the roots of their native land, but Rabbi Matthew gives the reader a much different insight. I really enjoyed how Rabbi Matthew used biblical and historical context to show the connection between Judaism and early Africans. When asked what an ideal Jewish person would look like, I would imagine a non-black person(like many others would). Matthew gave me a more diverse outlook when he describes the descendants  of crucial Hebrew prophets such as Noah, Moses, and Solomon, who were in fact African. Before reading this chapter, I thought that Judaism and African people had very little connection, when in actuality they were key components in the Hebrew faith.

I wanted to look up some videos about the history of the Ethiopian Hebrew identity, but nothing immediately came to light except a video with a link in the description to the “Lion of Judah Society” website. I didn’t even realize what Rastafarianism was up until that point, so it was really interesting to see the connection between it and the Ethiopian Hebrew identity talked about in the first Weisenfeld chapter this week. In general, I think it’s interesting how many fringe-to-large African American movements decided to align themselves with either Judaism or Islam, and the myriad odd ways in which they chose to do so. I had never heard of Moorish anything at least within recent history until this week, and when I found out that there is still a fairly sizable congregation belonging to the Moorish Science Temple of America, I was kinda shocked. It’s definitely cool, but it’s also a little bit annoying how many people try to use very similar words to describe themselves, and the ways in which they can get tangled up.
Here’s the video that led me down that weird rabbit trail, though:

In Miles Mark Fischer’s piece about “Organized Religion and the Cults,” he looks at the rise of cults in African American Culture. I found this part of the reading extremely interesting because the idea of the cult being something of the rise I found interesting. Cults have been around for years in America which I recently learned about in one of my history classes when we read The Kingdom of Matthias .  He said that there were many small cult-like groups popping up around the United States with individual prophets claiming to be healing groups (Sernett, 467). That lead me to question why African Americans started forming religious cults at that point or if it was occurring before, why did it become such an issue then? Cults seemed to be an alternative to the traditional “White” or “Black” churches they had to choose from. It was almost like they went because it was the third option for them when they really had no other options. Fischer looks at cults like they were a bad thing but to me, it seemed like people only went to cults because it allowed them to explore their spirituality instead of just following the traditional things they were forced follow for years.

In Judith Weisenfeld’s first chapter was the first time that black Jewish people had been discussed. Some parts of the chapter were a little hard to wrap my head around like how Rabbi E. J. Benson called black Jews Hebrews and white Jews ‘Jews.’ But white Jews were called ‘Jews’ because they were Jews of European descent. I kind of understand that and the need to separate themselves from white Jews. And it was not strange to me that the black Jews did not want to be called ‘Negroes.’ Benson told his congregation to call themselves ‘Ethiopian Hebrews’ and not ‘Negroes’ as that was an insult. There was a lot of background information, such as black Jews being descendant of Abraham because he had smooth skins while the white Jews were descendants of Esau because they had hairy skin. This confuses me because I guess that I am unaware of these “stereotypes.” I just don’t understand how they could come up with that conclusion. What exactly specifies as being hairy?

Rabbi Matthew is a man very dedicated to his orthodox Hebrew lifestyle and very harsh towards Christianity. But Rabbi Matthew may have had something going on. He saw Christianity as a way to give into the white man’s ploy. He wasn’t wrong. He also knew the origins of  Judaism stemmed from Africa, specifically Ethiopia. But creating a curriculum with the intention of converting most of the African American population is ambitious. Rabbi Matthew saw African Americans as the chosen people of God and thought he could save them. He was able to encourage eight thousand people to join his cause as he did make some convincing points in conversation and in his curriculum but I feel like he’s being a little contradictory as he trying to convert everyone to look into his ideology.

Here is a crash course on Rabbi Matthew ans his legacy

(Link located in Legacy)

I think that a lot of generalizations are made about African-American religions, and I will admit that I fell into such a category before taking this class. African-American religion is not just Christianity, and it’s not just Protestant denominations like the Baptists or Methodists. As we’ve studied and will continue to discover, African-American religious thought is so much more than that — it’s Catholicism, indigenous African traditions, Christian denominations like COGIC, it’s Islam, Nation of Islam, and Santeria and Vodun; it’s rural, it’s urban, and it can’t clearly fit into societal lines.

In Weisenfeld’s two chapters, she had two related, but separate theses. In the first she discussed Arnold Ford and the Ethiopian Hebrews, Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple, and Arthur Matthew and the Commandment Keepers. In the second, she explained the origins and evolution of the Nation of Islam under WD Fard and Elijah Muhammad, as well as Father Divine and the Peace Mission.

Her thesis for the first chapter was that regardless of how far from the “norm” these religious traditions were, like many African-American Christians of the time, they connected their religious heritage to Africa. The two groups even were in dialogue together — they “participated in a shared discourse with many black Christians that linked racial identity and spiritual destiny to their homeland [Africa].” The roots of Africa grounded believers with a deep significance put place especially, a sacred geography. This connection to Africa served as a foundation for the identity they formed for themselves as believers and as black people in the United States.

While the second chapter also emphasized connections to Africa, WD Fard and Elijah Muhammad did not create such relationships with the Christians around them. They went so far as to say the Bible was a “poisoned book.” However, they still used the ideas of Africa and heritage to forge identities for their followers. They did reject ideas of “American,” in favor of “Asiatic.” Their emphasis was on black people’s being a nation, “which has no beginning or end.” Father Divine also had ideas that would have not agreed with mainstream Christian thought, since he saw himself as the embodied manifestation of God.  The traditions in this chapter seemed to go beyond just America, and even beyond Africa, and had believers see themselves in a different time and place, and the place of the divine and the individual within human history.

The second chapter closed with the idea that “the power of the narratives to draw blacks in the urban north into new identities that did not rely on slavery as the experience that created black peoplehood.” Blacks became the “religious agents,” rather than the “objects of missions.” I think that sentiment is powerful, in that we’re beginning to see the development of religious thought and identity on a group’s own terms, rather than them trying to fit within an already pre-determined mold.