Black Presence in the Bible and the Black Church Commissioned

The focus of this project is to enlighten and educate the Black community about their Black biblical heritage in the Word of God. Since all Scripture is “inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3:16), all biblical records about Black people are likewise inspired by God. Thus, the Bible is the primary source for African Americans to determine their true history and identity. I contend that such knowledge will empower blacks to counteract the Europeanization of the Bible, which eliminates Black presence or misrepresents Blacks as cursed. The project provides a curriculum for the Black Church as an important resource for biblical apologetics and the task of counteracting racist interpretations of God’s Word. In addition to raising the consciousness of the Black Church’s biblical heritage, the project is designed to reach non-Christian African Americans through evangelistic endeavors, particularly those who reject Christianity as the White man’s religion and the Holy Bible as the White man’s book. The project provides a teaching-learning mechanism for pastors, lay leaders, and church members that is designed to help them facilitate the realization of the Black Church’s mission objective.
The project is also designed to establish and strengthen the linkages between African Americans and African people vis-à-vis the shared heritage of their African ancestors, who witnessed the glory of God. Through cooperative educational programs between the African Christian and African American Church, these communities will have new tools to address the many challenges these communities continue to face.
Project findings include the following:
1. Local African American churches lack Christian educational studies and curricula pertaining to Black presence in the Bible.
2. Pastoral preaching on biblical Black heritage is nearly absent in most churches of the African American community.
3. When materials on biblical Black heritage are introduced into local African American churches, their reception is positive.
4. It is necessary that Black Christian educators, whether pastors or teachers, include the biblical salience of Black people as a matter of sound exegetical work when educating their communities and espousing or explaining the Scripture.
This project asserts that God’s Great Commission for Africa is the same mandate as that given to the Black Church in North America. Accordingly, a clear understanding of the following issues is in order:
1) the biblical ancestry of Black Africans and African Americans;
2) the historic relationship Black people had within the emergence of the biblical world, as shaped by the societies and cultures of ancient Africa;
3) the ways in which these African ancestors belonged to the Community of Faith in both the Old and New Testaments; and
4) how the African biblical ancestry eventually evolved into the Black Church in America.
By foregrounding these issues, the curriculum this project produces is designed to strengthen Black Christians and equip them to implement positive approaches in order to increase African consciousness and fulfill the Black Church’s mission.