Aude Calloch

Out of all books, the Bible is definitely one of the most protected, untouchable, uncriticizable works in the eyes of the general public. Although Christianity (and religion as a whole) continues to decline in practice, an important percentage of the Western population still goes by the book. And as the West founded a majority of its societal rules around religion (laws, customs, beliefs), we as a society perpetuate some practices and behaviors which take their roots in religion, and more precisely in Christianity. However, all the demographics who inhabit the West and who sign up to Christianity do not have the same relationship with religion. Some people historically chose to be Christians, and some were constrained to. Upon reading this, some readers might think of the Christians vs. Jews conflicts in Middle-Age Europe, during which a number of Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism, and whilst it isn’t incorrect to think of that example, we tend to forget a bigger one: Christianity and its ties to slavery.

Christianity and the Bible in fact served as one of the crucial pillars for the enslavement of African people by European colonists. First stripped of their native culture, enslaved people then had for obligation to sign up to Christianity, alongside with adopting a European language, a European name, and European customs as a whole. So how and why was the Bible so central to the conditioning of enslaved people by Europeans?

First and foremost, one thing worth knowing, but rarely spoken of, is how the Bible in fact condones the very concept of slavery:

[1 Peter 2:18] “Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.”

[Ephesians 6:5-8] “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.”

[Colossians 3:22-25] “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.”

Now how convenient is this when you’re trying to convince an entire population that they should submit to you because “God said so”?

By bringing God into the debate, Europe not only instilled the fear of rebellion into the African psyche, but also bypassed Europe’s own responsibility in the killing and torturing of millions of innocent people. By using the Bible as very basis for their atrocious agenda, European colonists made clear for both parties that what was happening was inevitable: whites saw it as God’s will, and blacks as an inevitable destiny.

Although this didn’t work for every single enslaved person, it worked for enough of them for Christianity to become an inseparable part of their culture. In fact, Christianity is nowadays the most practiced religion in almost every single former slave colony. Jamaica’s main religion is Christianity. Columbia’s main religion is Christianity. Aruba’s main religion is Christianity. The majority of Black people in the United States of America are of Christian faith. So are most Black people in Brazil. Even Africa itself has for most practiced religion Christianity, closely followed by Islam, introduced in the same manner, through colonization and slavery.

Now you might ask, why is this phenomenon a bad thing? It is a bad thing because of various reasons. Firstly, as previously said, enslaved people were stripped of their culture, and subsequently of their identity. Secondly, it is a bad thing because becoming a Christian was not a choice for them, but rather an obligation. And thirdly, it is a bad thing because enslaved people were not given the entire truth. Indeed, enslaved African people were not merely given a simple Bible, they were given a specially edited version of it, with passages meticulously tailored to their predicament. In other terms, European colonists gave them a book with all the reasons to love and forgive the master. And all of that, in “God’s own words”. It thus goes without saying that the passage where Moses “frees the Jewish people from slavery out of Egypt” (despite the utter absence of proof backing up this narrative, but that’s a different topic) did not figure in the Slave Bible. In fact, anything which could potentially ignite the desire of rebellion or cause trouble was removed. A contrario, any passage which could convince the enslaved mind to abide the laws and rules of slavery was included. Consequently, the final version of the book they were given was the very basis for their programmation into docile individuals. And again, although it didn’t work for everyone (Haiti’s slave rebellion of 1791-1804 being a good example), it worked for the majority.

So how did this transfer into nowadays’ mentality? First, we need to examine the religious practices of the oppressor versus that of the oppressed. According to a 2018’s study carried by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan American think-tank based in Washington, D.C., white Americans are on average less religious than their black counterparts. Their study also shows that the attendance to weekly religious service is higher amongst Black Americans than amongst whites. Isn’t that curious when it was originally Europeans who forced their religion down African people’s throats?

Furthermore, as the versions of Christianity each party signed up to were different, in the sense that the teachings differed by their very nature and constitution (the oppressor possessing the complete Bible, whilst the oppressed only had an incomplete and distorted version), the application of religion was also very different. Whilst white settlers very much liked the idea of Christianity, they often put in application only a few selection of principles we find in the Bible, two examples being slavery and misogyny ([1 Corinthians 14:34–35] “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”, [Ephesians 5:22–33] “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”).

On the other hand, the application of Christian beliefs by enslaved black people (according to the biased version of the Bible they were given) was rather focused on forgiveness, obedience, and humility. We can observe sequels of these behaviors in recent events: 6 years after the Charleston Church shooting in South Carolina, a tragic event during which nine African-American people were killed by then-21-year old Dylann Roof, white supremacist and neo-Nazi, the church holds a seminar… on forgiveness. Sadly, it turns out that already 16 hours following the shooting, the victims’ families had already given Roof their mercy: “I forgive you. My family forgives you”, says a relative of Myra Thompson, one of the deceased. From such disheartening events, we can draw that a lot of tumors have gone untreated within the black community, in particular in the bosom of the black Church.

To go back to the use of the Bible and religion by Europeans, it seems as all along, it was all a “do what I say but not what I do” situation. Christianity was in fact nothing but an alibi used during the entirety of the colonial era to perpetuate highly immoral acts. Now the problem is that you can’t deprogram an entire nation out of four hundred years of indoctrination, in the snap of a finger. Decolonizing the African mind is going to take years, if not centuries. And although we were forced into our own condition, it does not mean that we cannot take action to change the status quo. We as human beings have the beautiful ability to learn anything. We also have the ability to unlearn anything. We can create, erase, re-create, erase again, and re-create again. But for doing so, we need to want it. We need to want the change as much as we need it.

Ultimately, being Christian is not a bad thing. There’s a lot of good, empowering, deep, moral things written in the Bible. But there’s also a whole lot of bad. As a black individual, Christianity needs to be examined on a deeper level, due to the complex relationship our ancestors have had with its creed. Choosing Christianity needs to be an individual decision rather than a communitarian custom. And ultimately, to think you’re following the best religion, you first need to know what others have to offer, for you cannot call something “best” if you’ve never tried or seen anything else.