It is a well-known historical fact that Christianity was used by White slave owners as a form of mental control over slaves. From Plantation to Ghetto by A. Meier and E. Rudwick states: Finally, masters employed religion as a form of control over the slaves. After it was understood that baptism did not confer freedom and that the Southern wings of the Methodists and Baptist Churches had no intention of applying their egalitarian religion to the temporal status of the status of the slaves, many planters saw advantages in having slaves attend religious services. Some owners even built chapels on their plantations. Of course, such planter-sponsored religious observances emphasized the other wordly aspects of Christianity, rather than the impulse toward social justice in the Judaic-Christian tradition, promised salvation to those who obeyed their masters. From the masters perspective, therefore, Christianity functioned as an anodyne to help slaves accept their lot in this world. Also, Blyden again states: Generations descending from Huguenot and Puritan ancestry were trained to believe that Yah had endowed them with the right to enslave the African forever. And upon those Africans who became members of the Christian Church, the idea was impressed that it was their duty to submit, in everything, to their masters. Christian divines of all shades of opinion, in the South, taught this doctrine, and embodied it in the books prepared specially for the instruction of the slaves? their oral instruction, for they were not allowed to learn to read. Christianity was never given to so-called Black people for their spiritual benefit. Christianity served only as a vice to enslave the minds of The Most High chosen people for generations.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 02:22:23 +0000
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