Its not a racist Question. I know others are probably just a religious, but i wanted to be more specific. Do you think it had more to do with culture and an upbringing or is there more to it.
I ask this because i’m the only atheist in my African American Family. The rest are Christians. Most just claim it but probably don’t know **** about it or even care to know. I dont see how any one can be a christian “AT ALL” but i guess… Its whatever. So yea, Why do you think so many AA’s are Affiliated with christianity. 87 percent of them.
Categorized | Featured Articles
Why Are African Americans So Affiliated With Christianity?
Posted on January 2, 2013.
Slave owners understood the value in the religion to keep their slaves under control.
Once it is beaten into you, and then you beat it into your children, it is hard to get out from under it.
I think it goes back to the slave days, they had to look to supernatural things to feel good about the “next life” and it just became a tradition and was passed down.
I’m glad that they are. I have met a lot of good, God-fearing, African Americans.
“They like the idea of a White man dying for their sins.”
Jesus was not white you idiot. He was Middle Eastern.
Islam too
Before I say this just now that I’m black and I’m an atheist.
The answer is, most black people turned to Christianity during the times of slavery and they passed it down from generation to generation, and the reason they’re so “into” it is becase black people aren’t very intelligent when it comes to science.
It really goes back to slavery. Life was treating them so horrifyingly badly that religion was all that many of them could turn to. And over the years, traditions passed down, and so we get jazz music and ebonics and lots of black Baptist churches.
Because Christianity is the truth 🙂
Probably because most had ancestors that were raised Christian by their masters. Now the religion has been passed down. Since they’re a minority/select group, they can’t correlate to the rest of America’s demographics. Also, they have gospel churches. There’s really nothing to hate about gospel church: it’s uplifting, energetic, and fun.
In the words of Chris Rock:
“If you’re a black Christian, you’ve got a reeeeeal short memory.”
because that is one of the few liberties they had in the times of slavery. religion (in the USA).
They like the idea of a White man dying for their sins.
I wonder if black Christians ever think about how their ancestors were converted to Christianity in the first place. It surprises me that so many black Christians remain (a significant amount did convert to Islam during the civil rights movement).
There are several reasons for that.
1. Christianity has long been the dominant religion of America. So when African slaves were brought over, they were made to convert to Christianity. Some resented this, while others embraced and held onto it.
2. Slaves identified with the story of the Israelites in Egypt. They came up with songs describing how God or a Moses archetype sent by God would lead them to freedom. Thus the title of Moses came to be applied to several abolitionists, such as Harriet Tubman.
3. Speaking of abolition, it was led predominately by Christians, especially ministers, who of course encouraged the slaves to hold onto their faith. And this wasn’t just in America. Dedicated Christian William Wilberforce of England was instrumental in ending the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Today Christians are still at the forefront of the abolition movement, though our work has since turned to raising awareness, as the vast majority of human trafficking in the West is now underground, allowing the average person to go on blissfully unaware that slavery still exists.
Those are the three primary factors in why Christianity is predominant among religious African Americans.
we no longer live under the OLD TESTAMENT; we live under the new testament; however In ancient times, slavery existed in EVERY PART of the world. Slaves had no legal status or rights, and were treated as the property of their owners. Even Plato and Aristotle looked upon slaves as inferior beings. As inhumane as such slavery was, YOU must keep in mind that on occasion it was an alternative to the massacre of enemy populations in wartime and the starvation of the poor during famine.
It was to the people of this harsh age that the Bible was first written.
In New Testament times, slave labor was foundational to the economy of the Roman empire. About a third of the population of Roman Italy were slaves. If the writers of the New Testament had attacked the institution of slavery directly, the gospel would have been identified with a radical political cause at a time when the abolition of slavery was unthinkable. To directly appeal for the freeing of slaves would have been inflammatory and a direct threat to the social order. People like you would have come “unglued”.
in a nutshell….. the New Testament acknowledged slavery’s existence, instructing both Christian masters and slaves in the way they should behave (Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:2;24:1; 1 Timothy 6:2; Philemon 1:10-21), at the same time that it openly declared the spiritual equality of all people (Galatians 3:28, 1Corinthians 7:20-24; Colossians 3:11).
Paul wrote to Philemon about a “run away” slave, Onesimus, whom he has met in prison. Paul says that he is sending “my child Onesimus”-whom he calls “my heart”-back to Philemon, who is obviously a fellow Christian. Paul asks Philemon to accept Onesimus “no longer as a slave…..
Christians in Corinth, for example, he says: “Were you called [to be a follower of Christ] while a slave? Do not worry about it; but if you are able also to become free, do that. For he who was called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men” (1 Cor 7: 21-24). Do not become slaves of men? That hardly sounds like an unqualified endorsement of slavery.
The New Testament gospel first had the practical effect of outmoding slavery within the community of the Church, and carried WITHIN IT the seeds of the eventual complete ABOLITION of slavery in the Western world.
As you can see today, after 2000 years, it has worked.
In Rome, the Third Lateran Council of 1179, decreed that slavery should be the penalty for those who provide the Saracens with arms and and wood for helmets, and become their equals or even their superiors in wickedness and supply them with arms and necessaries to attack Christians.
Ham’s son Mizraim founded Egypt (still called Mizraim in Hebrew). Egypt was the first recorded nation in the Bible to have harsh slavery and it was imposed on Joseph, the son of Israel, in 1728 BC. Later, the Egyptians were slave masters to the rest of the Israelites, and Moses, by the hand of God, freed them.