Christian History articles from May 1999

Christian History archives from May 1999

DID YOU KNOW?
May 1, 1999... Spiritual memories of slaves--in their own words. SHE'D BE A-PRAYIN' My mother, all de time she'd be prayin' to de Lord. She'd take us chillun to de woods to pick up firewood, and we'd turn around to see her down on her knees behind a...

LETTERS FROM THE READERS.
May 1, 1999... More Munster mess I was born and raised in Munster and am fairly familiar with its history. Your photo on the "Lamberti Kirche" is either from before World War II or much later. I am not sure whether the present-day cages are replicas or...

DEFEATING THE CONSPIRACY.(religion of African-American slaves)
May 1, 1999... Ignorance, prejudice, and even "Bible" Christianity joined forces to sabotage the faith of African-American slaves. Peter Randolph, a slave in Prince George County, Virginia, until he was freed in 1847, described the secret prayer meetings...

HE STILL WID US--JESUS.(spirituals and theology)
May 1, 1999... The musical theology of spirituals. Militant abolitionist Thomas W. Higginson was the commander of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first Union regiment made up of freed slaves. In his camps, his soldiers would break out into song,...

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.(abolition)
May 1, 1999... Black abolitionists were tired of waiting for a gradual, peaceful end to slavery. Will the Lord suffer this people to go on much longer, taking his holy name in vain? Will he not stop them, preachers and all? O Americans! Americans!! I...

SLAVERY UNDER IDEAL CONDITIONS.(excerpt from 'Narrative of the Life and Adventures of an American Slave,' 1849)
May 1, 1999... Mr. Young [a devout Methodist] never was known to flog one of his slaves or sell one. He fed and clothed them well and never overworked them. He allowed each family a small house to themselves with a little garden spot whereon to raise their...

BLACK MOSES.(Harriet Tubman)
May 1, 1999... The mystical faith and no-nonsense tactics of the Underground Railroad's most famous leader. In 1831, a Kentucky slave named Tice Davids made a break for the free state of Ohio by swimming across the Ohio River. His master trailed close...

Black Christianity Before the Civil War.
May 1, 1999... 1701 The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) begins missionary work among Native Americans and, later, African slaves. 1758 The first recorded black congregation organizes on the plantation of William Byrd,...

GOD'S AVENGING SCOURGE.(Nat Turner's rebellion)(excerpt from 'There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America')
May 1, 1999... Nat Turner's rebellion, the bloodiest in slave history, was driven by his prophetic visions. Nat Turner seemed to have imbibed deeply all the best elements of evangelical southern white religion. He did not use tobacco or liquor, he seemed...

THE EXPATRIATE OPTION.(life of George Liele)
May 1, 1999... Some blacks, like George Liele, had to emigrate to live and minister freely. As far as it can reckoned, George Liele came into this world the same year (1751) as James Madison, future member of the Continental Congress and fourth president...

YOU MUST NOT KNEEL HERE.(Richard Allen, founder of African Methodist Episcopal Church)
May 1, 1999... One April Sunday, Richard Allen and fellow black Methodists decided they wouldn't stand for prejudice anymore. No major Protestant denominational family in post-Revolutionary America was immune from interracial strife. Whites and blacks...

BAPTIST POWER.
May 1, 1999... How the largest African-American denomination in the world got its start. They can arguably be termed the most authentic "protestants" in modern church history. Only a handful of black Baptist churches were allowed to exist before the...

THE FRUIT OF FREEDOM.(influential African American Christians)
May 1, 1999... When given even a limited opportunity to grow, these African-American Christians blossomed. Forgotten Poet PHILLIS WHEATLEY c. 1753-1784 `Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to ...

THE DIGNITY OF FAITH.(lessons from black Christianity before the Civil War)
May 1, 1999... What does the experience of black Christians before the Civil War have to say to American Christians (both black and white) today? Most of us would recall the early centuries of the Church as the era of persecution, when thousands of...

BLACK CHRISTIANITY BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR.(Bibliography)
May 1, 1999... The enslavement of an estimated ten million Africans over a period of almost four centuries in the Atlantic slave trade was a tragedy of such scope that it is difficult to imagine, much less comprehend." So begins Albert Raboteau in Slave...