Have you ever been so surprised by a statement that upon hearing it you were literally at a loss for words???

One morning a while back, I noticed that the rear driver side tire was just about completely flat on one of my cars. I aired it up temporarily, but knew it was going to need servicing later.

After getting finished with my work for that day, I headed to a tire shop I was familiar with in a neighborhood that I lived in for a long time. While I was waiting on the tire work to be completed, I noticed a rather large milk truck pulling in to the shop. This wasn’t just any milk truck.

It was a FULLY customized milk truck with religious wording on every side. Across the driver and passenger side printed in huge letters was “Truth Seekers“. A black man gets out the truck and is dressed in ALL black. He’s got a t-shirt on that says “Holy Ghost Power”. Across his belt says “Tool of God”. The hat he was wearing even had religious wording on it.

I have to admit I was impressed lol.

So I asked what form of ministry he was in? He paused, gave me a funny look, and then went into “educating me” in this long spill using BIG words making him sound super intellectual in a spiritual way.

I felt like I was listening to a “Religious Version” of Stephen A. Smith.

Nothing he said really ever made sense even though on the surface it “sounded cool”. We went on like this for a little while and I’m thinking to myself he’s just one of those “super deep” Christians lol.

Midway through the conversation I sensed Holy Spirit wanting me to ask

“What he believed happens after we die?”

Which in my mind was ridiculous to ask because I’m looking at his appearance and his vehicle and hearing him talk and I figured that would be a ridiculous question.
But I yielded and asked him anyway and He says

“Nothing”

So I responded

“Are you saying you don’t believe in a Heaven and Hell”?

He responds

“No such thing. No such thing. This life we living right now is either your Heaven or Hell”.

At this point I was in UTTER SHOCK to say the least and was at a loss of words for about 10 seconds.

Just in case you forgot his t-shirt said HOLY GHOST POWER for goodness sake!?! I was NOT expecting him to say that!

So by this time I felt the need to share the gospel. Everything I “assumed” about his beliefs went out the door. “Assuming” he was familiar with the bible I asked his thoughts on John 3:16.

He ends up telling me that the scripture is about Jesus saving us from perishing without knowledge of who we really are as “BLACK MEN”.

He finishes up by telling me he was God (my eyebrows touched my hairline when he said that) and that his job is going out to awaken other young black brothers depraved of TRUE knowledge “such as myself” that we are Gods as well and that he hopes to see us liberated from the “White Man’s RELIGION“.

Which leads me to my topic question…

Is Christianity actually the “White Man’s Religion”?

Have I been deceived all my life?

If you are of African descent, have you been deceived as well?

Now this was not the first nor the last time I heard something along these lines from someone which is one of the primary reasons I decided to delve into this topic because if this is true, hundreds of millions of people have been conned into something that is a flat out lie.

I remember reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X and him being quoted as saying:

 

 

“Christianity is a religion DESIGNED for SLAVES and Negro Preachers are a CURSE to the Black Man“.

Just like Malcolm, EVERY person that I’ve spoken to over the last decade who hold to this line of thinking at some point in the conversation refer to the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade that took place over the course of several hundred years. I honestly don’t have the best words to describe that period, but it was ATROCIOUS.

According to Phillip Curtin’s book “The Atlantic Slave trade: A Census“, for about 400 years of operation, the Atlantic Slave trade removed approximately 11.7 million people from West and Central Africa with the intention of making them slaves in Europe, the Americas, or on islands off the coast of Africa. Only about 10 million according to him made it to their destination. The rest died while in port, during the sea voyage, or upon arrival in a new land. Other historians for example John Henrik Clark in his book “Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust” have thrown out numbers as large as 100 million Africans were taken! Whether it was 10 or 100 million, The Atlantic Slave Trade was one of the most devastating events in WORLD HISTORY.

People were ripped away from there families and communities and taken to some foreign land where they were treated like ANIMALS/PROPERTY which is why some refer to that period of time as Chattel Slavery.

To be honest in my opinion, animals were treated FAR BETTER than them.

Conditions on board of the ship were appalling. The men were packed together below deck and were secured by leg irons. The space was so cramped they were forced to crouch or lie down. Women and children were kept in separate quarters, sometimes on deck, allowing them limited freedom of movement, but this also exposed them to violence and sexual abuse from the crew.
Below is a picture of the Slave ship “Brooks” circulated by some Abolitionists in the 18th century

The air in those quarters was foul and disgusting. Usually because of dead bodies and especially Feces (Poop) EVERYWHERE. Seasickness was common and the heat was oppressive. The lack of sanitation and suffocating conditions meant there was a constant threat of disease. Epidemics of fever and smallpox were frequent. Captives endured these conditions for about two months, sometimes longer!
The combination of disease, inadequate food, and punishment took a heavy toll on the slaves. Surviving records suggest that until the 1750’s one in five Africans on board the ship died before arrival. Many Africans, if having the opportunity, jumped into the ocean to their death. Seeing that as BETTER than living out the rest of their life as a slave to the White man.

So for many African Americans this is still to this day a VERY sensitive issue including myself about what took place to our ancestors and rightfully so.

Regardless of what our current president believes, America was NOT GREAT during this time.

White Americans wanted to strip these newly transported Africans of everything they once knew. They were FORCED to take on new names, FORCED to learn and talk in a new language, and also FORCED away from any of their “Heathen Religions” of old into believing the teachings from the BIBLE. White Americans saw this as a means to help bring the slaves into a form of mental bondage which they felt would keep the Slaves from revolting which was always at their UTMOST CONCERN.

Many White American Preachers particularly in the South would use SPECIALLY SELECTED SCRIPTURES from the bible to keep the slaves in submission. Despite well-known incidences such as the Slave Revolt in Haiti (1791) the unfulfilled revolts of Gabriel Prosser (1800) and Denmark Vessey (1822), Nat Turner’s Revolt (1831), and a myriad of others, this strategy was very successful in large part by the Slave Owners. Many slaves at FIRST saw embracing this religion as a way to please their slave masters hopefully diverting further punishment against themselves.
As some slaves began to learn to read, they learned that much of what Slave Masters taught was NOT ACCURATE and they were MISLEADING them by incorrectly teaching the bible e.g. Nat Turner. Also many of the events recorded in both the Old and New testament of the bible brought a sense of peace and hope to the slaves. According to E.E. Cleveland in his book “Free at Last”, The hope for the African was that one day just like the children of Israel suffered under the hands of the Egyptians, they too would escape the suffering from the White Europeans/Americans and eventually make it to Heaven.

And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:7-11

Now even though African slaves found peace and hope in passages such as these in what they read and heard within the pages of the bible, it doesn’t mean necessarily we should be wasting our time with it in Christianity today.

If Christianity was some “clever scheme” developed by White Europeans/Americans to keep African Slaves in bondage and from revolting then we are currently and have been wasting our time for hundreds of years.

But here is the thing that every single time people who hold to this line of thinking have failed to either bring up knowingly during my conversations with them or on many occasions quite frankly just didn’t know.

Christianity is NOT a religion founded by White Europeans.

Christianity did not START in the 1500’s as a means to give African slaves false hope during their time of captivity.

On the contrary, Christianity had been going on BEFORE the “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade”.

Christianity actually began during the reign of one of the greatest and most known empires of the world:

The Roman Empire (330 B.C- A.D. 410)

Historians both Religious & Secular (Non-Christian) date the beginning of Christianity around the year A.D. 30.

This is almost 1600 years BEFORE the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.

Also

Christianity is the most DOCUMENTED WORLD Religion by far.

It’s not even close.

The ridiculous assertion from Black critics such as Yosef Ben Jochannan in his book ” A Chronology of the Bible” and a myriad of other popular Afrocentrists over the last century and a half that the bible was ALTERED by “Whites” to condone slavery and deceive blacks up to present day is completely UNFACTUAL and down right DECEPTIVE.

In order to know the truth of what was originally written BEFORE the African Slave Trade all you have to do is be willing to learn a new language…

KOINE (Common) Greek

Koine Greek was the language that the 27 letters in the New Testament were originally written.

You might be thinking right now…

“Why would the New Testament be written in Greek if Jesus and his disciples spoke and knew Hebrew and Aramaic and the Old Testament was written in these languages as well?

Because during the time these letters were written (A.D. 50-90), Greek was the common language in the Known World. Even for most Hebrews, the MOST popularly read “Old Testament” during this time was the Greek Septuagint. Also since Jesus commanded his followers to go into ALL the World and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20), What language made the most sense to write letters in???

The one most COMMON: KOINE GREEK

There are over 5,700 Greek manuscripts housed in museums around the World. The oldest manuscript to date is a fragment from the Gospel of John identified as P52 (Papyrus 52- Papryus is a type of material that was used by scribes to make copies of the scriptures on during this time).

It can be located in the Rylands Museum in Manchester, United Kingdom.

CRITICS: I mentioned that just in case you wanted to take some vacation time off and travel there to verify it 🙂

It is 2 sided with the front containing John 18:31-33 and the back containing John 18: 37-38. Secular (Non- Christian) Critics such as Bart Erhman have even conceded the date of this fragment from within the MID SECOND CENTURY (A. D. 160).
As I stated earlier, it is definitely TRUE that Whites mislead and deceived African slaves by taking certain passages out of context from the bible, but completely FALSE that they made changes to the bible because of the evidence of the Greek manuscripts from over a 1500 years prior.

Now I would like to mention this FACT:

No matter who you are or where you live, we are ALL biased towards something. Our present thinking has been shaped in many ways by where we were born, our parents and the environment of our upbringing, the religious backgrounds to which we have been introduced and raised in, friends, teachers, professors, television, social media and etc.

Why do I mention this you say?

Because one important factor to properly understand many of the things that are said within the bible is to understand the context with which is was written in.

It’s going to be pretty hard to understand any of it if you’re attempting to read a

1st CENTURY text through “21st CENTURY EYES”.

For example, When you come across scriptures such as 1 Peter 2:18-20 and PETER is giving instructions to SLAVES who have converted to Christianity, you have to keep in mind this was during the Roman Empire NOT THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE.
There is a huge difference between the two when talking about SLAVERY. According to Roman-Greco Historian Mark Cartwright during the Roman Empire:

1. Slavery was NOT based on SKIN COLOR but was a CLASS-BASED SYSTEM.
2. A lot of slaves were captured during war against other countries.
3. Some even sold themselves into Slavery for instance if they were very impoverished.
4. As much as one third of the Roman population were slaves, and another third had been slaves earlier in life. It was common for freeborn men and women to work side-by-side with slaves as street sweepers, dockworkers, households, agriculture, mines, the military, manufacturing workshops, construction and a wide range of services within the city.
5. A lot of Slaves were WELL-EDUCATED and held what we consider today very prestigious positions e.g. Accountants, Physicians and Teachers.
6. Roman Slave Owners freed their slaves outright sometimes or in some cases allowed the Slaves to buy their freedom. After buying their freedom, some even became Roman Citizens and in some cases became SLAVES OWNERS THEMSELVES. One famous example was the freedman C. Caecilius Isidorus who would eventually own over 4,000 slaves!

NONE of previous statements I just made sound anything like what was experienced in the Americas during the TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE.

Christianity on the other hand has been EMBRACED by Africans since the PHYSICAL (not mental) Resurrection of Christ.

One of the FIRST Gentile (Non-Jewish) converts mentioned after the ascension of Jesus into heaven is from:

AFRICA

 

In Acts of the Apostles 8: 26-40, We find the account of the ETHIOPIAN Eunuch and Phillip crossing paths:

And there was an Ethiopian, eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this (Isaiah 53):

Critics: If White Christians during slavery crafted/ twisted the scripture texts (as some have asserted to me), why would they have a Black African riding in AUTHORITY, on a CHARIOT, in charge of TREASURE with a scroll and then show the Jewish Christian Phillip walking on foot?!?

Makes no sense!

Critics: “Well, that’s just stuff out of the Bible, I do NOT TRUST/BELIEVE the Bible. Unless there’s evidence outside of the Bible I do NOT believe it.

 Did you know that….

Three of the most famous Theologians and Apologists from Early Christian Church history are from AFRICA:

Origen (182-254 A.D.) was the second leader at the Famous School of Alexandria in Egypt.

Tertullian (160-220 A.D.) Great author and apologist who defended the the Doctrine of the Trinity. He also made the famous statement,

“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

He was referring to the difference between “Man’s thoughts” (Philosophy) and God’s Word (Theology).

 

Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.)

He was a major figure in bringing Christianity to dominance in the previously pagan Roman Empire.

*NONE of these AFRICANS were Slaves by the way*

ALSO

DID YOU KNOW THAT…

Powerful African Kingdoms such as Wakanda (I’m Kidding)

Being Serious now…

Powerful African Kingdoms for example in Ethiopia embraced Christianity when Ancestral worship was very common in neighboring countries.

One of the most famous African Kingdoms was led by…

KING EZANA

The 4th century King of Aksum, which was a powerful nation within Ethiopia, was converted to Christianity.

*King Ezana was NOT FORCED into Christianity, on the contrary He EMBRACED it*

So much so that afterwards he declared Aksum as a Christian Nation!

We have archaeological evidence of this because King Ezana inscribed on several stones such as these about his conversion to Christianity and also recorded his victorious conquests.

Coins made also by the Aksumites bear a cross behind King Ezana were discovered throughout the 20th Century.

Some of these coins are being housed currently at the British Museum in London, England.

CRITICS: Just in case you wanted to use some of your vacation time and go there 🙂

What is it that these few Africans from long ago mentioned above could see in the beauty of the Christian Gospel?

 

The same PERSON I saw over a decade ago which is WHO I hope you can see right now…

JESUS

Every human being who has ever lived has something in common:

We are all DISEASED.

A quick study of some of the world’s largest religions such as Islam (5 pillars), Hinduism (read the Bhagavad Gita), Buddhism (8 Fold Path) will show that they all attempt at trying to deal with this disease known as : SIN

Many people around the World believe by trying to OVERCOME SIN THEMSELVES that they might be able to achieve PARADISE (Islam), MOKSHA (Hinduism), or NIRVANA (Buddhism).

but herein lies the Problem

NO ONE can be justified by their works and good deeds (Romans 3:10, Psalms 14:3, Acts 4:12).

God, the creator of the Universe, is Holy and Righteous.

No amount of good works can be done to satisfy the debt owed by mankind.

The only way Man can satisfy this debt is by God performing an act of GRACE doing something for mankind that they could never do for themselves. 

What “Act of Grace” did God perform for you and I?

The Apostle Paul makes it very clear in Ephesians 2:1-9

“At one time you were like a dead person because of the things you did wrong and your offenses against God. You used to live like people of this world. You followed the rule of a destructive spiritual power. This is the spirit of disobedience to God’s will that is now at work in persons whose lives are characterized by disobedience.  At one time you were like those persons. All of you used to do whatever felt good and whatever you thought you wanted so that you were children headed for punishment just like everyone else.

 However, God is rich in mercy. He BROUGHT us to life with Christ while we were dead as a result of those things that we did wrong. He did this because of the great love that he has for us.  And God raised us up and seated us in the heavens with Christ Jesus.  God did this to show future generations the greatness of his grace by the goodness that God has shown us in Christ Jesus.

You are saved by God’s grace because of your FAITH. This salvation is God’s gift.

It’s not something you possessed. It’s not something you did that you can be proud of”.

What’s is God’s gift?

Jesus

Jesus never says “What can you do to EARN my love”

rather Jesus says

“Look at what I have ALREADY DONE because of MY LOVE FOR YOU”.

From the World’s viewpoint, Christianity is just “another religion“.

On the contrary for the Follower of Jesus   

  It’s a RELATIONSHIP we experience with Him EVERYDAY.

The brother I mentioned at the beginning stated that in John 3:16, this scripture is referring to Black people.

This is FAR FROM THE TRUTH.

Neither is it only for White People!

John 3:16 applies to ANYONE!

 

NO MATTER WHAT YOUR SKIN PIGMENTATION IS!

Jesus died to redeem the lives of people from

ALL ETHNICITIES

                                       so that one day we will experience what the Apostle John saw (Revelation 7:9-10):

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from EVERY nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: