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- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
Who were Jupiter Hammon, Lemuel Haynes and Daniel Alexander Payne? And what do they have in common with Martin Luther King Jr., Howard Thurman and James Cone? All of these were African American Christian theologians, yet their theologies are, in many ways, worlds apart.In this book, Thabiti Anyabwile offers a challenging and provocative assessment of the history of African American Christian theology, from its earliest beginnings to the present. He argues trenchantly that the modern fruit of African American theology has fallen far from the tree of its early predecessors. In doing so, Anyabwile closely examines the theological commitments of prominent African American theologians throughout American history. Chapter by chapter, he traces what he sees as the theological decline of African American theology from one generation to the next, concluding with an unflinching examination of several contemporary figures. Replete with primary texts and illustrations, this book is a gold mine for any reader interested in the history of African American Christianity. With a foreword by Mark Noll.
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For Christ Jesus who purchased me with his own blood.
To the saints of African American heritage—gifts to the entire Body of Christ.
To the women in my life: Kristie, Afiya, Eden, Frances and Joyce.
To my son: Titus Ezekiel.
Contents
Foreword
It is remarkable that, to my knowledge, there has never been a book that attempts what Thabiti Anyabwile’s The Decline of African American Theology attempts. For historical purposes, the book makes an unusually valuable contribution with its full account of the course of African American Christian thought. Theologically, it makes another signal contribution with its critique of the general development of that thought. For both historical and theological reasons, this is a very important volume.
As a survey of historical theology, it offers an expert, well-contextualized, and very nicely organized survey of a truly important topic. Its treatment of six areas of doctrine is as clear as the doctrines are important. For some of the individuals treated here, more extensive material is available elsewhere, but I do not think that anyone has put together such a serious reading of so many sources, and done it so well. For a few of the figures (especially Jupiter Hammon and, surprisingly, the notable nineteenth-century Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne), what Rev. Anyabwile provides is some of the best exposition of these figures available. To be sure, there might be some omissions that could be filled in if this were to be a life’s work of 1,000 pages (for example, there is nothing on the pioneering Reformed Baptist, David George). A full roster of other worthies—Daniel Coker, Richard Allen, David Walker, Henry Highland Garnett, Henry McNeal Turner, and Martin Luther King Jr.—are mentioned only in passing. But for a book of reasonable size, the coverage is very broad. Especially the treatments of Jupiter Hammon, Lemuel Haynes, Bishop Payne, William Seymour, Marcus Garvey, Howard Thurman, James Cone, and T. D. Jakes are outstanding. To see such figures considered together makes for a superb contribution to the historical understanding of African American theology throughout the whole of American history.
How Rev. Anyabwile himself interprets the theological history he narrates so well will not please all readers, since he makes that interpretation from his position as a firm Reformed theologian of the old Puritan school. Yet since the book clearly differentiates between historical exposition and theological critique, the perspective of the author does not prevent readers of any sort from benefiting from the whole. Indeed, Rev. Anyabwile’s interpretation of this history makes an important theological contribution of its own and should be the right kind of challenge for all readers. The firmly Reformed will much appreciate it; those that lean in that direction (like myself), or that lean against it, will be encouraged to think more carefully about normative theological judgments; while those who strongly oppose such a Reformed view (like strong Arminians, strong modernists, strong liberationists, strong health-and-wealthists) might be quite irritated. This result is not a problem. In fact, because the book is written from a well-defined angle, it actually gives readers purchase for understanding the historical survey and reacting to Rev. Anyabwile’s judgments.
Along the way, one of the most interesting of many provocative matters is to see how the paranormal and the theological coincided in African American history. In a word, it is remarkable that dreams, visions, and disembodied voices often communicated to more-or-less illiterate audiences (often kept illiterate by the malice of masters) a picture of the Christian faith that was very close to what Bible-believing readers and careful theologians also held. Of many such insights on individual thinkers and topics, this book is full. Because I have already learned so much from its pages, I am delighted to recommend it wholeheartedly to others.
Mark A. NollFrancis A. McAnaney Professor of HistoryUniversity of Notre Dame
Acknowledgments
I am greatly indebted to a number of people who offered great guidance, encouragement, time and support to this project.
I have found a virtuous woman, and quite amazingly she has condescended to be my wife! Without the grace of God shown in large measure to me through my wife, this book would not be finished. Chief among those that I must acknowledge is my beloved Kristie. Sweetie, “I see you in my eyes.”
If any man should be blessed by God in this life to appropriately use the term “friend,” he will have met with the kind of people who leave lasting, formative and positive impressions upon his life. He will have encountered tangible expressions of God’s love. The completion of this project is owed to God having placed in my life such “friends.”
Many thanks are owed to Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., a friend and colaborer in the gospel. Mark challenged me to work on this project in earnest and provided faithful spiritual care to me during the years of work on this book. He is a faithful shepherd and a dear brother. Mark Dever also introduced me to Mark Noll, who took time during a busy sabbatical to comment on some early outlines for the chapters of this book. In addition to the praise I and the Christian world owe God for the voluminous and edifying works of Mark Noll, I am incredibly grateful for his encouragement and support on this project. And I am thankful for what I pray is the start of a lasting friendship as well.
Any man with the privilege of calling C. J. Mahaney a “friend” is a man blessed of God indeed. I’ve learned more about godliness, service, love of family and church from C. J. Mahaney than perhaps anyone. And God placed it in C. J.’s heart to cultivate “evidences of grace” in my life and this project. I am thankful to the Father for C. J.
At the completion of this project, two churches stand out as great models of Christian family, love and support in the body of Christ. Members of Capitol Hill Baptist Church and First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman have prayed for this work, read many drafts, commented, edited and in most every way imaginable made this a better book. I praise God for his body in both places and I thank him for the way both families have impacted and shaped my life.
Special thanks are owed to Joel Scandrett at InterVarsity Press who worked so faithfully and patiently to bring this book to completion.
Then there is the crew of men who stir me on to love and good deeds. They are many and they are loved. I thank and praise God for Rickey Armstrong, J. R. Scott, Ken Jones Jr., Anthony Carter, Sherrard Burns, Michael Leach, Peter Rochelle, the elders at First Baptist Church and Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Derrick Scott, Randy Scott, and Louis Love for their faithful labors and their friendships in Christ.
Figures
Figure 1.
Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne, from the frontispiece to his autobiography, Recollections of Seventy Years, published in 1888 (The Ohio Historical Society)
Figure 2.
1874 sketch of the interior of the First African Church, Richmond, VA (Library of Congress). The rendering illustrates the prominence of preaching in early African American congregations that held the Bible in high regard.
Figure 3.
Sketching of Rev. Lemuel Haynes, appearing as the frontispiece in Thomas Mather Cooley, Sketches of the Life and Character of the Reverend Lemuel Haynes, published in 1837, four years after Haynes’s death (Library of Congress)
Figure 4.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), a mass “back to Africa” movement that borrowed and modified traditional Christian themes and doctrines according to Garvey’s New Thought ideals (Library of Congress)
Figure 5.
Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915), twelfth bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first person of color ever commissioned as a chaplain in the U.S. military, and Georgia state legislator, who advocated emigration of Blacks back to Africa and the idea that Negroes should have a black God (Library of Congress)
Figure 6.
Title page for the 1806 publication of Jupiter Hammon’s Address to the Negroes of the State of New York
Figure 7.
Elias Camp Morris (1855-1922), called the “Moses of the Baptists,” was a pioneering president (1895-1921) of the National Baptist Convention, the largest religious body of African Americans in the country, founder and later president of Arkansas Baptist College in 1884, and pastor of Centennial Baptist Church in Helena, Arkansas. Photo c. 1890 (Central Arkansas Library System)
Figure 8.
A rare portrait of Phillis Wheatley shows her facing forward, wearing an evening dress and jewelry. The portrait appeared in Revue des Colonies in Paris between 1834 and 1842 (Schomburg Center).
Figure 9.
Frontispiece from Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, published in 1773, the first work of literature published by an African American woman (Library of Congress)
Figure 10.
Albert Cleage, founder of the Pan-American Orthodox Christian Church, preaching to a large gathering of African Americans in Detroit. Cleage was an outspoken proponent of a black Jesus for black people (Walter R. Reuther Library, Wayne State University).
Figure 11.
Frontispiece and title page from Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olauda Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African
Figure 12.
Sketch of Bishop Richard Allen, first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Library of Congress)
Figure 13.
Photograph of a “ring shout,” a traditional spiritual ritual involving patterned and sometimes frenzied “dances” in response to preaching and singing. Proponents attributed the “shout” to the workings of the Holy Spirit, while opponents like Bishop Daniel A. Payne regarded the practice as disorderly and “heathen” (Library of Congress).
Introduction
The church is perhaps the most studied organism in history and the social sciences. This general statement is no less true for the African American church. Over the years, many scholars have probed the origins, functions and activities of the African American church. For the most part, these authors and their studies have been concerned with locating the African American church in particular historical contexts and discerning its contribution to black social and civic life.
While the works of W. E. B. DuBois, E. Franklin Frazier, C. Eric Lincoln, and others have been particularly well received and useful for understanding the church in historical and sociological terms, the seminal work of these writers and others has stopped well short of tracing the theological understandings and contributions of African Americans and the African American church. In other words, what should be studied as the most central characteristic of the church—its theology—has been for the most part neglected by scholarly research and writing. The thing that makes the church the church—its understanding of God’s nature, work and interaction with man—has not received sufficient attention as either a subject unto itself or as a motivating factor in more plentiful historical and sociological studies. As James Cone insists, “A community that does not analyze its existence theologically is a community that does not care what it says or does. It is a community with no identity.”1
The present work is an attempt to contribute to much-needed theological reflection both inside the African American context and between African American and other ethnic communities. By “theology,” I generally mean the study and knowledge of God. Moreover, this book is concerned with Christian theology in the African American context rather than the broader topic of African American religion, so it takes the Bible as the authoritative and normative source for theology. The term theology is applied to academic discourse (e.g., systematic theologies), applied or practical works (e.g., sermons and lectures), and to what might be called Christian folk thought (e.g., slave songs and testimonies). To be certain, varying levels of specificity and elasticity of concepts are found in these repositories of African American Christian theology. Nonetheless, the academic, practical and folk productions reveal much about how African Americans think about, experience and explain the nature and ways of God in the world. From them a more robust picture emerges for consideration. Here, then, “theology” is what is believed, taught and confessed in various forms by African Americans.2
The presentation of a coherent study of the theological reflections and contributions of African Americans and the African American church must take advantage of and set in dialogue various sources. A survey of African American theology is immediately confronted by either the absence of African Americans doing theology or the relative lack of source material from the earliest periods. In contrast to the development of the white European and American churches from the 1500-1900s, the African American church was not primarily engaged in the production of written intellectual theology per se. For much of this period, African Americans were either barred from the academies of theology or legally prohibited from acquiring an education of any sort. In addition, many of those who escaped the educational and physical oppression of slavery in the U.S. chose very different educational and career paths. Consequently, the early African American church is largely without a cadre of technical, writing theologians; thus an easy approach to surveying African American theology via a review of such writings is not available for the earliest period of that history. One is left to extract from other sources a summary of the beliefs expressed in narrative, testimony and song.
But despite the absence of academic theologians, one should not conclude that African Americans were either uneducated theologically or completely inactive in theological reflection. In the African American experience, the persons most likely “doing” theology were preachers and civic leaders as opposed to the academically trained theologians of the “white church.” While European and American theologians contended with intellectual threats to Christian theology, African Americans developed their theological understandings in the crucible of the slave experience. Early African American Christian theology was birthed and grew up in the context of American chattel slavery and the Colonial experience. Consequently, one has to look not in the academy but in sermons, slave narratives, political speeches and popular writings for traces of the early beliefs of African Americans since the 1700s. In these sources one can trace a set of theological ideas and convictions arguably as important and influential in lived experience than more precise, academic statements. These sources vary in depth, intention and representativeness, but are collectively a good collage of African American beliefs. And when set in “dialogue” with later academic theologians, great potential for tracing a story emerges—a story not necessarily of cause and effect, but of vision and revision based to some degree on the historical and social settings in which African Americans found themselves.
Premise. The present work attempts to trace the development of African American theology from its earliest manifestations in the slave narratives, slave songs, sermons and popular writings from the 1700s to current reflections and contributions. The white evangelical church of the 1700s is largely credited with giving birth to the African American church in the plantation south. Missionaries and evangelists associated with Baptist and Methodist churches were the first to make successful inroads into the religious lives of African Americans. Contrary to what might be supposed given the prohibition of education, reading and writing among slaves, early black Christians evidenced a rather sophisticated and clear theological corpus of thought. This clarity of early theological insight produced perhaps the most authentic expression of Christianity in American history, forming the basis for the African American church’s engagement in both the propagation of the gospel and social justice activism.
However, over time, especially following emancipation from slavery through the Civil Rights era, the theological basis for the church’s activist character was gradually lost and replaced with a secular foundation. The church became less critical theologically and increasingly more concerned with social, political and educational agendas. Disentangled from its evangelical and Reformed theological upbringing, the church became motivated by a quest for justice for justice’s sake rather than by the call and mandate of God as expressed in more biblical understandings of Christianity. Secularization overtook the African American church, along with its “white” counterpart.
As secularization took root, the predominant framework for understanding the African American church shifted from theology to sociology and was influenced by the work of W. E. B. DuBois, E. Franklin Frazier, and others. With an emphasis on a sociological framework for studying the church, the African American church came to be understood primarily as a social institution and self-help organization with a vague spiritual dimension, rather than as a spiritual organism born of God’s activity in the world. This is not to imply that the church has not always played a major role in educational, social and political agendas, but to point out the loss of a God-centered understanding of why such pursuits were appropriate for the church.
As a consequence of theological drift and erosion, the black church now stands in danger of losing its relevance and power to effectively address both the spiritual needs of its communicants and the social and political aspirations of its community. In effect, cultural concerns captured the church and supplanted the biblical faithfulness that once characterized it. It has lost the law and the gospel, and stands in danger of lapsing into spiritual rigor mortis. The present work is undertaken as a reminder to the church of its rich theological past and as a call for the church to reclaim its effectiveness by returning to a proper theocentric view of itself and the world.
Method. Were the theological contributions of several African American theologians and church leaders abundant and codified according to the traditional themes of Christian theology, especially from 1700-1900, one might simply review the work of these leading thinkers. However, for much of African American church history an easily identifiable corpus is not readily available, making the work of historical theology more difficult.
An undertaking of this type requires a method that is one part historical and one part literary review. Mark Noll has outlined the history and important shifts in American Protestant evangelical Christianity and identified five periods: the Revolutionary era, evangelicalism, and second Great Awakening (1750-1800); the rise of “evangelical America” and American denominationalism (1800-1865); the decline of Protestant America (1865-1920); the emergence of Modernism and Liberalism (1920-1960); and the Civil Rights era and Postmodernism (1960-present). These periods of American and church history provide an important backdrop for understanding the interaction of African American theology with the ideas of other segments of Christianity and philosophy.3
The present work adopts a historical framework that roughly aligns the timelines of the African American experience with Protestant, evangelical Christianity in America and Europe. I have opted for this framework (1) as a method for displaying the convergence and departure of these two Christian traditions and (2) as a method for locating important literary works and thinkers in the context of broader church history. Each chapter is organized into five periods:4
Early Slavery Era Through Abolition Era (1600-1865)
Reconstruction, “Jim Crow” Segregation, Great Migration and the “New Negro” Movement (1865-1929)
Depression and World War II (1930-1949)
Civil Rights Era (1950-1979)
End of Century, Postmodern Era (1980-present)
Significant shifts in the treatment, freedom and mobility of African Americans characterize each period of African American history. For each era, the major theological contributions of key African American thinkers, preachers and writers are examined for their representativeness of, and impact on, the trajectory of the black church’s theology. One key criterion for selecting persons for inclusion was the availability of a body of written material to survey. The volume attempts to present these thinkers and leaders “in their own words,” so written materials were essential. This selection criterion produced some lamentable omissions. For example, Richard Allen is arguably one of the most important figures in African American Christian history. Yet, he receives only passing treatment because not much of his theological and sermon material remains. But on the whole, the figures included not only left source material but also exerted significant influence on their peers and subsequent generations.
I attempt to maintain some continuity of themes (doctrines) across each time period by examining the contributions of key thinkers to the doctrines of revelation, God, man, Jesus Christ, salvation and the Holy Spirit through each era of African American history. The evolution of the church’s doctrinal understanding of these themes is examined with particular emphasis on points of convergence and divergence from historical orthodox Christian theology.5 Orthodox Christian theology, a Reformed theology in particular, serves as the baseline for judging the strength of African American beliefs for two reasons. First, the earliest generation of African American writers generally held to a broadly Reformed perspective as a result of their early contact with Calvinistic Baptist and Anglican missionaries and because this theology shaped the wider Colonial and American society at the hands of New England Puritans. Second, the Reformed understanding, especially the Reformed doctrines of revelation, God and salvation, best represent the biblical teaching on these subjects. So, for historical and theological reasons the Reformed heritage of African Americans is used as the starting point for tracking the decline in African American ideas about God.
A Reformed starting point and bias notwithstanding, an attempt is made to let the writers speak for themselves by resisting the temptation to impose an interpretation on the authors’ words. Too much of the work that focuses on the theological perspectives of slave testimonies, for example, superimposes meanings and conclusions not clearly present in the original texts. To the best of my ability, I have let authorial intent govern the presentation of included perspectives. I have tried to first make clear what an author intends to say in a given work and only after doing so to then evaluate the contribution and impact of that work on the strength or weakness of theology in African American Christianity. Without doubt, I have done this imperfectly and only ask the reader to charge any errors to my head and not to my heart.
The emphasis throughout the book is not on a detailed social, political or ecclesial history, but on the theological ideas themselves. So, the chapters are organized according to the typical heads of a systematic theology. Some readers will want more historical detail. For them, I’ve attempted to call attention to general references that may be helpful. The choice to organize the chapters by the theological headings leads to some repetition, but I pray any redundancy is outweighed by the potential of learning from the writers and sources as they’re set in “dialogue” over these major theological issues. Moreover, I pray that the organization of the book helps shift the focus and conversation in the church to theology itself and to some extent away from history.
Each chapter concludes with a reflection on the slide from orthodoxy to cultural captivity occurring over the three hundred years of African American Christianity and an assessment of the impacts that slide made on the black church. Some consider African American theology to have been without critique for most of its history.6 Certainly there will be many who disagree with some of the critiques offered. Perhaps the concluding comments in each chapter will provide some stimulus for the beginning or expansion of critique and discussion across various traditions.
My hope and prayer is that this work might contribute to a reformation among African American churches, where sound theology is recovered and once again given prominence in our understanding of church history and in our contemporary practice. African Americans are a people who care deeply about history. I pray that this volume contributes significantly to our understanding of this rich theological heritage while providing critical insights for reassessment and careful appropriation of biblical truth. And most importantly, I pray that this small volume would in some measure bring glory to God the Father and his beloved Son Jesus Christ, who loved the world in such a way as to shed his own blood for the redemption of our souls.
Soli Deo Gloria.
1
“I Once Was Blind, but Now I See”
The Doctrine of Revelation in the African American Experience
But can mortal man behold him? The eagle veils his eyes
before he can gaze upon the unclouded sun.
Who then can gaze upon the visage of that God
whose shadow illumines the sun, and who covers
himself with light, as with a garment?
Nevertheless the pure in heart shall see God.
They shall see him in all his works of nature, providence, and grace.
They see him alike
in the minute insect, and huge elephant;
in the sagacious mocking bird and the stupid ostrich.
They see him sprinkling the earth with flowers,
and gilding the firmament with stars!
They see him walking with Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego,
in the fiery furnace, and sitting with Daniel in the lion’s den.
They see him while a babe in the manger, and a man
quelling the raging sea amid the howling storm!
They see him amid the lightnings and thunders of Sinai,
and amid the tears, the groans, and the blood of Calvary!
BISHOP DANIEL ALEXANDER PAYNE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT
How does one know God? How can his divine will be apprehended and followed? Is it possible to truly know something of the character of the divine Creator? Can we know God in any way other than through sacred writings and traditions?
These questions are not new, neither were they new at the dawning of African American religious history. Every people and culture in human history struggled to find satisfactory answers to this epistemological problem—how does one know? And more specifically, how does one know God?
General revelation: God revealed in nature and conscience. Historically, Protestant Christianity resolved the problem of knowing, particularly knowing God, by considering two sources: general and special revelation. The doctrine of general revelation held that God left his imprimatur on the design of the universe and in the conscience and moral laws of humanity. So, the psalmist proclaimed that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19:1), and the apostle Paul asserted, “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made” (Rom 1:20). According to the doctrine of general revelation, the Creator communicated something of his person and divine will through the created order, including the conscience and moral laws ingrained in the individual and human society. With application of reason, then, the natural order reveals God in a real and true sense.
However, Christian theologians through the ages taught that while general revelation was enough to apprehend God in some sense, to know that he exists, humanity needed another form of revelation to better comprehend God’s specific attributes and will. For example, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), opposing the Enlightenment’s emphasis on human reason, illustrated the limits of human reason by pointing to the inability of one person to know the unexpressed thoughts of another. “We find that the things of men cannot be known by other men any further than they reveal or declare them.” The same must be true, Edwards reasoned, of God. “So says the apostle it is with the things of God that we are told in the gospel. They are things that concern God himself, his secret counsels and sovereign will, and things in himself which he alone can be supposed to see and be conscious to immediately. And therefore, our reason will not help us to see them any further than God’s Spirit is pleased to reveal.”1Edwards argued that to make reason the final arbiter of divine truth was to subordinate God’s rule and make the fallacious claim that fallen human reason was a better guide in spiritual things. Reason had an important role in determining whether Scripture was divine in origin and infallible in content; however, once that was establi shed Edwards argued that “modesty and humility and reverence to God require that we allow that God is better able to declare to us what is agreeable to that perfection than we are to declare to him or ourselves. Reason tells us that God is just, but God is better able to tell what acts are agreeable to that justice than we are.”2
The typical view expressed by Edwards and others in the early Colonial era held sway through much of the country’s history. For example, Princeton theologian Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), refuting rationalist tendencies coming from Unitarians of his day, concluded, “we must unequivocally deny to reason the high office of deciding at her bar what doctrines of Scripture are to be received and what not” and “insist that all opinions, pretensions, experiences, and practices must be judged by the standard of the Word of God.”3 The Princeton theologians, from Alexander to B. B. Warfield (1851-1921), exalted the supremacy of divine revelation over human reason and natural revelation well into the 1900s.
Special revelation: God revealed most clearly in Scripture and in Jesus Christ. The doctrine of special revelation answered the church’s need for more particular or specific information regarding the character and plans of God, his commands for his people, and the way of salvation. The Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments, contained this special revelation of God. It, the church held, recorded God’s work in history to redeem and save a covenant people for himself. The pages of Scripture unveiled the attributes of God—his wisdom, omnipotence, holiness, mercy, love, supremacy, sovereignty, justice, etc.—in sufficient clarity for human beings to know and relate to him with accuracy and for their eternal redemption. In the Bible, one observed God revealing himself in and through the history of his people. In the Bible, prophets and apostles spoke and wrote the very oracles of God as they heard “the word of the Lord” coming to them, interacted with angelic messengers, or received visions directly from God.
And ultimately, Jesus Christ embodied all the truth of divine revelation, and was himself the message of God to fallen humanity. Where general revelation provided an awareness of the existence of God as demonstrated by his creation, special revelation particularized who this God was in his triune character, what his intentions were vis-à-vis humanity and history, and how God and humanity could be joined in meaningful relationship. The pages of Scripture contained this message and provided the one sure means of knowing the person and mind of God. In these pages, God disclosed himself and crossed the epistemological chasm between his infinite existence and humanity’s finite reason.
The principal representatives of the main Protestant churches in the American colonies brought with them these formulations of general and special revelation, doctrines that served generations of Christians before them. This way of knowing—via Scripture and general revelation—provided the foundation for the ordering of society in matters religious, political, scientific, economic and social. Owing to a theological consensus forged over a nearly twohundred-year period by Reformation thinkers and European churchmen, the American colonies began their experiment “under the Puritan canopy,”4 which subscribed to this two-source view of revelation.
The African American church and its doctrine of revelation first emerged and developed in the shelter of this canopy, but it also fed on input from other sources. Eugene Genovese observed, “Afro-American religion arose from a conjuncture of many streams—African, European, classic Judeo-Christian, and Amerindian—but pre-eminently it emerged as a Christian faith both black and American.”5 How these “streams” shaped the African American doctrine of revelation is the subject of this chapter.
EARLY SLAVERY ERA THROUGH ABOLITION ERA (1600-1865)
African American Christians in the northern colonies stood as heirs of the Puritan and evangelical tradition of divine revelation. The orthodox consensus regarding special and general revelation reigned from the founding of African American literature in the works of Jupiter Hammon to the end of slavery in the essays of Bishop Daniel A. Payne.
Jupiter Hammon: A characteristic orthodox view of the Bible and its authority. Jupiter Hammon (1711-1806?), for example, expressed a cogent and characteristically orthodox view of the Bible and its authority. Hammon, at the age of forty-nine, became the first African American to publish a work of literature. A slave his entire life, Jupiter Hammon worked as a clerk and bookkeeper for the wealthy slave trading Lloyd family of Long Island, New York. Young Hammon probably benefited from Anglican missionary educational efforts established in the Oyster Bay area of Long Island. In addition, through the Lloyd family’s economic and cultural ties to Boston, Hartford, New York and London, Hammon had access to literature and works of theology.6
“A devout evangelical Christian, Hammon had been converted during the earliest stirrings of the Great Awakening.”7 His Christian convictions likely received reinforcements under the Quaker ministrations of William Burling (1678-1743) of Long Island and abolitionist John Woolman (1720-1772) who visited Oyster Bay on at least three occasions. The Quakers of Oyster Bay and Philadelphia published Hammon’s Address to the Negroes in the State of New York with a posthumous acknowledgment of close association with Hammon. Sondra O’Neale observes that “as a writer [Hammon] used Christianity and its foundation of biblical language, allusion, and imagery to mount a public assault against slavery. He left four poems, two essays, and a sermon, however that offering includes the first, and most comprehensive statement of black theology as well as the earliest antislavery protests by a black writer in all of American literature.” And yet, as O’Neale concludes, “Hammon’s dual commitment to Christianity and freedom has been either undervalued or ignored.”8 To recover a historical understanding of African American theology, then, the pattern of ignoring or undervaluing Jupiter Hammon must be reversed.
In An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York, Hammon wrote:
The Bible is the word of God and tells you what you must do to please God; it tells you how you may escape misery and be happy forever. If you see most people neglect the Bible, and many that can read never look into it, let it not harden you and make you think lightly of it and that it is a book of no worth. All those who are really good love the Bible and meditate on it day and night. In the Bible, God has told us everything it is necessary we should know in order to be happy here and hereafter. The Bible is the mind and will of God to men.9
Hammon’s contention that “the Bible is the word of God and everything in it is true” indicated his subscription to the orthodox view of inspiration and infallibility. The words of Scripture were, according to the orthodox view, literally God-breathed or inspired (2 Tim 3:16). And given that they originated with an omniscient God, they were also without error in all that they recorded. Accordingly, Hammon urged his hearers to devote themselves to learning to read so that they may “study it day and night.”10 Hammon’s views were characteristic of most African American Christians of the period. This view of the Bible as special revelation held sway among African American Christians during the antebellum period and would remain largely unchallenged until African Americans gained access to the liberal schools of theology that emerged in the late 1800s and prospered through the mid-1900s.
Daniel Alexander Payne. Daniel Alexander Payne (1811-1893) was born February 24, 1811, to London and Martha Payne, free blacks in Charleston, South Carolina, during the height of slavery. Immediately following his birth, the elder Paynes dedicated their son to the work of the Lord; however, neither Payne would live to see their hopes fulfilled. London Payne died when Daniel was just over four years old, and Martha followed her husband in death just five years later. Raised by his grandmother, Daniel became a voracious student, devouring every subject of learning he could find. Between the ages of eight and fifteen, young Daniel received educational instruction from the Minor’s Moralist Society and a popular Charleston schoolmaster named Thomas S. Bonneau. While employed as an apprentice to local shoe and carpentry merchants, Daniel taught himself Greek, Latin and Hebrew. By age nineteen, Daniel Alexander Payne opened and operated a school for both slave and free Africans in South Carolina until the South Carolina General Assembly forced the closure of the school in 1835.11
Sleepless, loaded with disappointment, failing in prayer and doubting the existence and justice of God, Payne closed the school on March 31, 1835, and shortly thereafter moved north from South Carolina to New York. While in New York, Payne received encouragement to further education and training at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he received a Protestant theological education. In June of 1837, after initially resisting any call into full-time Christian ministry, Daniel Alexander Payne was licensed by the Lutheran Church and fully ordained about two years later by the Synod at Fordsboro, New York. He was a little over twenty-six years old.12
In the winter of 1841, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and by 1843 the AME church received him into full connection. Payne made his most significant contributions to the Christian church during his time as a pastor and later a bishop of the AME church. In particular, Payne’s tireless efforts to reform the character and educational quality of the African American pastorate earned him the moniker “Apostle of Education to the Negro as well as the Apostle to Educators in the A.M.E. Church.”13
Payne’s view of the Bible. Bishop Payne’s view of the Bible corresponded with that of Jupiter Hammon and evangelical America. In his most famous address, Welcome to the Ransomed, given on the occasion of the District of Columbia’s emancipation of slaves, Payne exhorted his hearers to “rest not until you have learned to read the Bible.”14 His estimation of the Scriptures resonated with that of most African Americans during the time. Quoting Psalm 19:7-10, he concluded that the judgments, statutes and laws of the Bible, “Yield uniform, implicit obedience to their teachings. They will purify your hearts and make them the abodes of the Ever-Blessed Trinity.”15 According to Payne, apart from obeying divine law, the recently freed slaves could not hope to obey human law. In his autobiography, Payne explained the relationship between Scripture, on the one hand, and moral, religious, civil and political ideas on the other. He displayed something of his high view of Scripture’s authority and inerrancy as he argued, “an individual man or woman must never follow conviction in regard to moral, religious, civil and political questions until they are first tested by the unerring word of God.” The Bible was to be the exclusive source and the norm for personal conviction and conscience. Payne continued:
If a conviction infringes upon the written word of God, or in any manner conflicts with that word, the conviction is not to be followed. It is our duty to abandon it. Moreover, I will add that light on a doubtful conviction is not to be sought for in the conscience, but in the Bible. The conscience, like the conviction, may be blind, erroneous, misled, or perverted; therefore it is not always a safe guide. The only safe guide for a man or woman, young or old, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, priest or people is the Bible, the whole Bible, nothing but the Bible.16
As a Bishop in the AME Church, Payne required responsive reading of the Bible in every local church’s public meeting, believing that “the colored race, who had been oppressed for centuries through ignorance and superstition, might become intelligent, Christian, and powerful through the enlightening and sanctifying influences of the word of God.”17 Following the Bishop’s leadership, efforts were made to encourage education in the Scriptures for both men and women and to use such knowledge as the basis for reform and self-improvement among the masses of African Americans.
Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne
Payne’s view of natural revelation. However, Payne’s doctrine of revelation did not end with a high view of Scripture. Near the twilight of American slavery, evidence of an understanding of natural or general revelation emerged in the writings of African Americans. Among them was Bishop Payne who, in a brief article in the Repository of American Religion and Literature, credited creation with revealing the incommunicable attributes of God. He wrote:
God has condescended to so adapt the intellect of man to the universe, and the universe to his intellect, that by the proper use of the former, and the contemplation of the latter, he may know as much of the Almighty as it is possible to know. The architect is known by his designs, and the skill with which he executes them; the spirit of inspiration saith, even a child is known by his doings, and hence it is also written, that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. And again the invisible things of him from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God-head.18
In the creation, according to Payne, God condescended or lowered himself to the level of man’s ability in order to communicate “as much of the Almighty as it is possible to know.” Appealing to biblical texts like Romans 1:20, Payne concluded that if people would simply apply their minds to the study of the universe, which is suitably fashioned to fit their intellectual abilities, they may come to understand the character, eternality and power of God. For Payne, the idea that God speaks and can be heard in and through the created universe was unassailable. “We maintain the position that in a universe whose proportions are as just as they are stupendous; whose forms are as beautiful as they are varied; whose parts and whose movements harmonize with mathematical precision—there is the utterance of an infallible voice, declaring that God is infinite in wisdom, omnipotent in power, and unbounded in goodness.”19
In Payne’s thought, not only the incommunicable attributes of God were revealed in the physical universe, but the moral laws of God, which “demonstrate the moral perfections of his being,” also were codified into the structure of the universe.20 Payne opined, “The heart of the legislator is always seen in the laws he enacts; if he be just, his laws will be just and equitable; if he be a tyrant, his laws will be unjust and tyrannical. So, also, the just and holy laws we have just been contemplating demonstrate the character of the heart of that God whom we love and obey.”21
This moral law, good in essence because God himself is omnibenevolent, applied itself universally and indiscriminately, favoring no persons. According to Payne, “Gabriel, at the right hand of the Eternal, and the meanest slave of Virginia, are placed alike under its glorious and fearful sanctions.”22 One’s station in life provided no escape from the just consequences and rewards of the moral lawgiver. In the natural moral law, then, writers like Payne found both a revelation of God’s character and a theological weapon for attacking moral injustices perpetrated against Africans, especially slavery. Payne argued that the purpose of God’s moral law was “the government of moral agents,”23 and the existence of this moral law was plainly seen in the nature of relationships and creation.
History as revelation. In his semi-centennial address delivered at Allen Temple AME Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, Payne put forth a three-fold view of revelation. He discussed the revelatory role of both nature and Scripture, but added that God was also manifested in history. Payne argued that God showed himself to his creation through the history of races, nations, governments and “that kind of personal history which we call Biography.” The greatness of God, according to Payne, exhibited itself in the origin, growth, decline and demise of nation states, and the exaltation and humbling of despots like Nebuchadnezzar, righteous and humble men like Daniel, and the punishment of crime in the lives of men like King David. Payne saw in history “evidences of (God’s) inflexible justice and beneficent providence, as well as his unquestionable sovereignty.”24 While Payne did not further develop this aspect of his doctrine of revelation, he nonetheless foreshadowed later theologians like James Cone (1938-) who consider the history of African Americans a significant source for formulating theological positions. Unfortunately, Cone and others would invert the priority that Payne assigned to the three sources of revelation by minimizing the authority and denying the inerrancy of Scripture and by exalting the importance of history and culture.
Revelation in slave theology. As historian Mark Noll makes clear, Puritan influences were greatest in New England. And while the Puritans exerted some influence over the entirety of civil, social and political life in the colonies, antebellum southern theology resisted the impress of New England, providing its own theological distinctives.25 The distinctiveness of southern theology was particularly evident among enslaved African Americans. Perhaps nowhere was the distinctiveness of African American theology more on display than in their doctrine or understanding of divine revelation. While the New England doctrines of general and special revelation, which were largely propositional and cognitive in character, provided a compatible framework for southern theological reflection, the advent of slave conversions gave the African American doctrine of revelation a more immediate, experiential and even emotional flavor. This distinction between white cognitive emphases in the doctrine of revelation and black emphases on subjective and immediate experience may help explain why the two traditions have traveled along mostly separate trajectories in the development of their theology.
Visions, voices and signs. Slaves in the American south most frequently wrote of God revealing himself through visions and voices. While they held the Bible in high regard, they by no means limited the revelation of God to either the Scriptures or to natural law as their New England counterparts had. In the folk theology of slaves, the doctrine of revelation was expanded to include direct, unmediated communion of man and God through visions and voices.
The belief that God was able to and frequently did reveal himself through voices and visions, if not normative by slave standards, was at least normal. The collection of conversion testimonies and short biographies assembled by Clifton Johnson in God Struck Me Dead are an invaluable recording of slave theological thought, at least among slaves alive during the twilight of the institution. Many of these slave conversion testimonies featured vision-and voice-based revelations, with the recipient recording very little surprise or disbelief at the prospect of hearing or seeing God through dreams or visions. The pervasiveness of God’s spoken revelation was demonstrated in his willingness to even speak to children as young as eight years old.26 One interviewee summed up the “normalcy” of hearing from God by saying, “I know that God talks to His people because He talks to me and has been talking to me ever since I was a boy.”27
In this person’s view, the exceptional aspect of God revealing himself through speech is not that he speaks with his people—of that the person was sure. Rather, the exceptional feature was that the voice and vision were “spiritual,” perhaps occurring in a manner and a dimension other than typical human communication but no less real. “He doesn’t talk as we talk but He talks to us and we hear with the spiritual ear and see through the spiritual eye.”28 The slave believed that visions and dreams were “inner” experiences. While the voice of God was unquestionably “audible,” it was not identical to the physical vibrations that produce regular sound. For example, one person describing his call to preach recalled, “He told me one morning in a voice as clear as mine but which seemed to be the inside of me.”29 Another commentator, waxing more theological, explained both the normalcy of God speaking to his people and the process through which God’s spoken revelation could be received by human beings:
The soul is the medium between God and man. God speaks to us through our conscience and the reasoning is so loud that we seem to hear a voice. But if God gave us the power of speech, can He not talk? If a soul calls on God, having [no] other earthly hope, will God not reveal himself to such a one?30
Where Bishop Payne understood the intellectual faculties of man as particularly suitable for apprehending God in the created physical universe, this former slave regarded the human conscience and soul as specifically designed for communication with God. The force of his rhetorical questions indicate that neither the ability of God to speak nor the fact that he does speak surprised the African slave, even if there was at times uncertainty about whether the voice in question was the reasoning conscience of man or the actual vox Dei from heaven.
In addition to the spoken word of God, some slaves also held that God revealed himself through signs. William Adams, a former slave, understood the revelation of God as an ability some Africans had to discern these signs. Adams relayed the following account of his ability:
How I larnt sich? Well, I’s done larn it. It come to me. When the Lawd gives sich power to a person, it jus’ comes to ’em. It am forty years ago now when I’s fust fully realize’ dat I has de power. However, I’s allus int’rested in de workin’s of de signs. When I’s a little pickaninny, my mammy and uther folks used to talk about de signs. I hears dem talk about what happens to folks ’cause a spell was put on ’em. De old folks in dem days knows more about de signs dat de Lawd uses to reveal His laws dan de folks today. It am also true of the cullud folks in Africa, dey native land. Some of de folks laugh at dey beliefs and says it am superstition, but it am knowin’ how de Lawd reveals His laws.31
For Adams, comprehending the revelation of God was connected to knowledge of precisely how God reveals himself through natural and supernatural signs. Ostensibly, those who knew God’s ways in revelation were capable of receiving information from and about God that others, whether more modern Africans or those who derided “superstition,” were not. And against the charge of superstition, William Adams responded:
There am lots of folks, and educated ones, too, what says we-uns believes in superstition. Well, it’s ’cause dey don’t understand. ’Member de Lawd, in some of His ways, can be mysterious. De Bible says so. There am some things de Lawd wants all folks to know, some things jus’ de chosen few to know, and some things no one should know. Now, jus’ ’cause you don’t know ’bout some of de Lawd’s laws, ’taint superstition if some other person understands and believes in sich.32
In Adams’s view, and perhaps the view of many Christian slaves, the revelation of God through signs, visions and voices was not only directly given, but at times sovereignly given to a “chosen few to know.” How and who was chosen was left to the mysterious ways of God.
1874 sketch of the interior of the First African Church, Richmond, VA
Slaves’ view of Scripture. While the African enslaved in the south held to a view of divine revelation more expansive than that promulgated by their orthodox peers in the North, they did not disparage the sacred Scriptures. The Bible was almost universally held in high regard. Southern African Christians accepted that the Bible was indeed the word of God, even if they were suspicious about its misuse in the hands of some slaveholders and whites that wielded it in support of the chattel institution. John Jea’s (1773-?) testimony is instructive in this regard:
After our master had been treating us in this cruel manner [severe floggings, sometimes unto death], we were obliged to thank him for the punishment he had been inflicting on us, quoting that Scripture which saith, “Bless the rod, and him that hath appointed it.” But, though he was a professor of religion, he forgot that passage which saith “God is love, and whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” And, again, we are commanded to love our enemies; but it appeared evident that his wretched heart was hardened.33
Despite his owner’s hypocrisy and savagery, Jea’s references to the Bible indicated both his savvy in responding against his owners by using their own instrument of oppression and his recognition that the Scriptures held the true words of God. He described his longing to hear God’s word despite his owner’s opposition:
Such was my desire of being instructed in the way of salvation, that I wept at all times I possibly could, to hear the word of God, and seek instruction for my soul; while my master still continued to flog me, hoping to deter me from going; but all to no purpose, for I was determined, by the grace of God, to seek the Lord with all my heart, and with all my mind, and with all my strength, in spirit and in truth, as you read in the Holy Bible.34
Rather than denounce the Bible as fraudulent along with its white adherents, the slaves recognized that learning to read the Bible and to possess its contents for themselves was real spiritual power, whose potency was made all the more alluring by efforts to prohibit its access. So, slaves vowed to learn to read before they died so that they could read the Bible. They took advantage of every clandestine opportunity to secure lessons from favorable masters or their children, often risking legally sanctioned retribution, severe beatings and death.
By the end of slavery’s reign in America, African American doctrines of revelation were beginning to widen and make room for sources of revelation other than the Scriptures, including God continuing to reveal himself through supernatural means and interventions. This expansion of the doctrine of revelation would weaken the centrality of the Scriptures in the practice and thought of African American Christianity.
RECONSTRUCTION, “JIM CROW” SEGREGATION, THE GREAT MIGRATION AND THE “NEW NEGRO” MOVEMENT (1865-1929)
With both sides claiming biblical support for their cause, the Civil War actually weakened public attention to and confidence in the Scriptures. The war sufficiently undermined interpretive processes that otherwise would have checked biblical interpretations hostile to a general Christian framework, unleashing several developments and attacks that threatened historically orthodox views of revelation and biblical hermeneutics. Intellectual attacks against Christianity arose within the new universities of the era. German “higher criticism” made its way to the country; and meanwhile, modernism reasserted the role of reason in epistemological matters, initiating a “figurative” hermeneutics for understanding biblical texts. In addition, the Social Gospel Movement popularized by Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) and Washington Gladden (1836-1918) influenced some African Americans interested in social concerns.35 These movements, associated as they were with liberal theology, introduced significant doctrinal debates and changes in the American Christian communities, including that of African American Christianity.
After the Civil War, there arose initially among Methodist congregations a renewed emphasis on personal sanctification and religious zeal known as the Holiness movement. One writer described early adherents of the Holiness movement as persons who “were fundamentalists, acknowledged the role of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life, were revivalistic, and were puritanical in their rejection of tobacco, alcohol, the theater, and cosmetics.”36 Spreading from Methodists between North Carolina, New York and Missouri to Baptist and independent congregations in Michigan, South Carolina and the Mid-South, the early Holiness movement provided fertile soil for the Pentecostal movement inaugurated by the Azusa Street revival of 1906-1908.37 Under the preaching and leadership of William J. Seymour (1870-1922) at Azusa Street mission, “the actual Pentecostal movement originated in a revival among black Americans” and “has been called a contribution from the black community to the white one.”38
William Seymour and revelatory tongues of Pentecost. With regard to the Bible, Holiness-Pentecostal leaders like William Seymour and Bishop Charles H. Mason (1866-1961), founder of the largest African American Pentecostal denomination, the Church of God in Christ, held a firmly evangelical view. Nearly all Pentecostal denominations were founded with a belief in the inspiration and infallibility of the Scripture and the authority of Scripture over faith, conduct and reason.39 Seymour wrote emphatically, “We stand on Bible truth without compromise,” and he understood that unity in Christianity could only be achieved through faithful adherence to the Scriptures. “We recognize every man that honors the blood of Jesus Christ to be our brother, regardless of denomination, creed, or doctrine. But we are not willing to accept any errors, it matters not how charming and sweet they may seem to be. If they do not tally with the Word of God, we reject them.”40 In addition, the Bible was the standard against which to judge the appropriateness of Christian conduct. “We are measuring everything by the Word, every experience must measure up with the Bible. Some say that is going too far, but if we have lived too close to the Word, we will settle that with the Lord when we meet Him in the air.”41 Elements of a regulative principle regarding spiritual gifts were also found in Seymour’s writings. For example, he proclaimed, “We do not read anything in the Word about writing in unknown languages, so we do not encourage that in our meetings. Let us measure everything by the Word, that all fanaticism may be kept out of the work.”42 The Bible in Pentecostalism was always to be its own interpreter by “comparing Scripture with Scripture so that there be no confusion and no deceptive spirit or wrong teaching.”43 With respect to the Scriptures, Seymour and other pioneers of American Pentecostalism stood, in part, as heirs to evangelical and orthodox views of the generations that preceded them.
