Column Faith of enslaved Africans found truth at Christianitys
core
By DIANA L. HAYES
As a nation and a church, we have
both benefited and been held back by the presence of persons of African
descent. We have benefited, of course, by their centuries of unpaid and
underpaid labor, by their ability to hold on in the midst of strife, to create
life from the constant threat of death, by their refusal to accept a God who
denied their humanity and sanctioned their enslavement and by their presence as
a subversive memory of suffering and survival in a land and church
that too often denied the existence of their souls.
We have been held back, however, by that same subversive memory of
what could have been if black and white men and women as well as those of all
races and ethnicities could have come together as a people sharing in love and
in their belief in a nation that lived up to its message of equality,
community, love and justice for all as well as a church that lived its
catholicity in every part of its life.
African-Americans are a paradoxical presence in our nation and its
churches. They have refused to abandon a faith in which they have participated
for over 400 years in this country and which their ancestors have influenced
and participated in since the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch in the Book of
Acts. Despite the distorted, dehumanizing Christianity that many attempted to
pass on to the African slaves, they were somehow able, by the grace of God, to
re-Christianize Christianity by finding the glowing ember of truth embedded at
Christianitys core -- that Jesus the Christ died to set all of humanity
free, not just a select few.
They did this by first keeping alive in their memories the words
of God that they had read in the Bible when they were allowed to read. They
remembered the story of the Hebrew slaves and how God did not forget them. The
Exodus story was a story of hope and promise for them. If God never changed,
then the same God of justice and righteousness would also set them free from
their unjust enslavement. They handed down the stories of a wonder-working God
from generation to generation and saw Gods hand in helping them to
survive as a people of faith. They rejected the writings of Paul, which were
twisted to legitimize their enslavement, as well as the distortions of the
curse of Cain and Han, which were bent to fit their black skins.
They, instead, recognized and believed that they too had been
created in the image and likeness of a God who despises injustice and promises
liberation in this life as well as in the next. They blew on that ember and fed
it with their faith and nursed it into a blazing fire of faith, hope and love,
which burned away the deceit of their fellow Christians and revealed the
burning light of a God of righteousness and unquenchable love for all of
Gods creation.
In so doing, they built communities of faith that melded the
truths of Christianity with their own ancient understandings of God and enabled
them, in the words of the hymn, to move on up a little higher with
each successive generation. These communities were organized across bloodlines
and included anyone who was enslaved or oppressed because of their African
descent.
In the Catholic church, they built their own churches and schools
rather than submit to the indignities their fellow Catholics imposed upon them.
These became locations of grace where they could be themselves and worship God
to their souls satisfaction in their own way and teach their children of
their rich and diverse pasts.
There are true saints in black Catholic history, and they are not
well enough known. Mary Elizabeth Lange and Henriette DeLille were both
founders of black womens religious orders in the early 19th century.
Black women then were not considered morally acceptable for white orders.
Daniel Rudd helped found the first National Black Catholic Congresses in the
late 1800s to address issues of concern to black Catholics, issues still
seeking to be addressed by the Congresses of the 20th and 21st centuries.
In a truly just and unbiased world, there would be no need for
days, weeks or months to call attention to the history of a particular people
because that history would be an ongoing part of the history of the nation.
Until that time occurs, we black Catholics continue to celebrate the journey of
a people of faith who serve as a paradoxical and subversive memory in our
midst, reminding us that in death, there is also life, and in seeming defeat,
there is also victory.
African-Americans are a constant reminder to all of us of how far
we have come but also how much further we still have to go on our pilgrim
journey home.
Diana Hayes is associate professor of theology at Georgetown
University in Washington.
National Catholic Reporter, March 22,
2002
|