FROM AFRICA TO AMERICA: THE LEGACY OF SUFFERING IN OUR AMERICAN JOURNEY

The depth of suffering for the early Christians was to be mirrored in the righteous Africans who, in spite of their masters, found the essence of Christianity in America. The journey from Africa to the Americas for the African was a debilitating voyage. He was stripped of everything that for him held any familiarity and everything by which he identified himself. This conscious stripping of the African in which was meant for evil, but used by God for good, is not however a justification of the magnitude of the evil that was perpetrated against this race.

However, in the midst of this gross sin, the heart and soul of some of these Africans remained unhardened. Having not forgotten their ancestral beliefs of one God, an afterlife, the punishment of wrongdoing, the reward of good, the consciousness of the spiritual realm, they were able to embrace the truth of Christianity. The remarkable thing was that they grasped this truth and sought to live it out despite every attempt to keep them from it. Those slaves who turned to Christ out of love for His love and despite what was being represented to them, suffered because of it.

Slaves were often persecuted severely by their masters for praying and holding prayer meetings, and therefore they had to practice their faith secretly. They are to be compared to the Catacomb Christians who in ancient Roman times held secret prayer meetings in tunnels under the city. Although not every slave was abused or threatened for show of belief, Christianity was often used to "tame" or to "woo" them into obedience. But many of our righteous forbears were able to see past the facade and grasp the essence of true Christianity. "They transcended slavery because they believed God made them in His image with a dignity and value that no slaveholder could efface." (Albert Raboteau, "Legacy of a Suffering Church: the Holiness of American Slaves," An Unbroken Circle.) Their identification with a Savior who suffered at the hands of men, who was an outcast, and rejected by the world made acceptance of Him as God a decision that would cost some of them their lives.

This expression of Christianity is the purest and truest form that America has yet to produce. It is from this stock that African American Christians come from. It is these wells of pure water that all people in America today should be drinking from. The blood of these righteous ones who were beaten, tortured and killed is crying from the ground to be recognized and honored. This sacred element of African American history is still passed over and looked on in shame, but the time has come that their memory must be unearthed and put in their deserved place of honor in the history of America, and especially the Church.

Those slaves who accepted Christianity under the conditions of slavery should be acknowledged for their long-suffering, courage, and devotion to Christ. It has been said, "If we do not share the lives of saints with our children, they will not know courage." We can add that they will not know purity, or virtues of any kind. It is through this transference of lives of patient endurance in the worst of circumstances, that our children will not be forsaken or have to "beg bread" from anyone.