Abstract
The above epigraphical poem, penned by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner of the AMEC, alludes to an important question regarding the status of African humanity vis-à-vis the Christian story,2 “What is the nature and destiny of African humanity?” This overarching question leads to other important issues regarding the placement of African descended people into the Christian story: Does African humanity occupy a coequal status with others, or does it exist on a substratum of human being-ness? According to the practices of early American evangelical Christianity, African humanity was indeed considered a specific kind of phenomena; it existed solely for the purpose of being the drawer of water and the hewer of wood. Inferior African humanity existed to be enslaved by a superior representation of humanity. Even if some of the so-called superior race felt that enslavement was anathema, they still entertained the idea of African inferiority. There were many reasons for this attitude: social, political, and ideological. However, there was also a certain theological and historical stance that rendered African humanity inferior. According to this stance, African humanity suffered the ignominy of being doubly condemned. Like all humans, African humanity fell from Edenic blessedness as a result of Adam’s sin.
My country, ’tis of thee, Dear land of Africa, Of thee we sing: Land where our fathers died, Land of the Negro’s pride, From every mountain side God’s truth will ring.
My native country, thee, Land of the black and free, Thy name I love To see thy rocks and rills Thy woods and matchless hills My heart with rapture thrills Like that above.1
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Notes
Henry McNeal Turner, “Our Sentiments,” Voice of Mission 5, no. 6 (June 1897), n.p.
Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 694–96.
W. B. Derrick, “Proclamation: Office of Home and Foreign Missionary Society, African Methodist Episcopal Church,” Voice of Mission 1, no. 2 (February 1893), n.p.
Sylvester Johnson, The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American Christianity: Race, Heathens, and the People of God (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 11.
Carrie Belle Lee, “The Future of Africa,” Voice of Mission 7, no. 7 (July 1899), n.p.
Rev. James M. Dwane, “A Native South African Writes of his Conversion Experience from ‘heathenism’ to Christianity,” Voice of Mission 5, no. 12 (December 1897), n.p.
E. Mayfield Boyle, “A Native African Boy Represents His Country in Alabama,” Voice of Mission 5, no. 6 (June 1897), n.p.
Henry McNeal Turner, “Editorial,” Voice of Mission 5, no. 5 (May 1897), n.p.
H. B. Parks, “Redemption of Africa: The American Negro’s Burden,” Voice of Mission 7, no. 9 (September 1899), n.p.
J. J. Coker, “A Letter From Africa: Wants of the Heathen—Duty of the Church,” Voice of Mission 3, no. 2 (February 1895), n.p.
Alexander Crummell, “Civilization as a Collateral and Indispensable Instrumentality in Planting the Christian Church in Africa,” in Africa and the American Negro: Addresses and Proceedings of the Congress on Africa, ed. J. W. E. Bowen (Miami, FL: Mnemosyne Publishing, 1969), 119.
Annie Weeks, “Africa For Christ,” Voice of Mission 4, no. 7 (July 1896), n.p.
“Grandeur of Missionary Work,” Voice of Mission 5, No. 4 (April 1897), n.p.
Rev. Mark Christian Hayford, “Christian Mission Work in West Africa: Lecture Delivered to The Young Men’s Christian Association in London, August 16, 1895,” Voice of Mission 4, no. 2 (February 1896), n.p.
W. H. H. Butler, “Report of Committee on Missions,” Voice of Mission 1, no. 1, (January 1893), n.p.
Rev. A. H. Hill, “A Colored Statesman as Well as a Divine, Speaks,” Voice of Mission 4, no. 9 (September 1896), n.p.
Alfred Lee Ridgel, Africa and African Methodism (Atlanta, GA: Franklin Printing and Publishing. 1896), 38.
Alfred Lee Ridgel, “Should Afro-Americans Return to Africa?” Voice of Mission 4, no. 3 (March 1896), n.p.
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© 2014 A. Nevell Owens
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Owens, A.N. (2014). Africa for Christ: The Voice of Mission and African Redemption. In: Formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Nineteenth Century. Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342379_4
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