Slave Religion

So why does he call it the “invisible institution”?

Here’s what he writes in his preface:

Until recently, the history of the black Church was a subject largely ignored by historians of religion in America, despite the wide recognition that black religious institutions have been the foundation of Afro-American culture. An agency of social control, a source of economic cooperation, an arena for political activity, a sponsor of education, and a refuge in a hostile white world, the black Church has been historically the social center of Afro-American life.

The enslavement of an estimated 10 million Africans over a period of almost 400 years in the Atlantic slave trade was a tragedy beyond imagination. To add to the repugnancy, from the very beginning of the Atlantic slave trade, the conversion of the slaves to Christianity was viewed as the justification for the enslavement.

But the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, and the revivals typified by camp meetings raced through white and black lives. Christianity became the faith of choice for many, if not most, of the American slave community.

It has also been noted by many historians that it was the Great Awakening and the revivals that followed that began to purify the distortions that had entered the thinking of white Christians about the ethics of slavery. A black man and a white man, both becoming “born again” at the foot of the cross, began to erode support for slavery and was the seedbed for much of the abolitionist movement. Particularly when you had blacks converting whites and whites converting blacks.      

The story of American slave religion – as with Puritanism and revivalism – cannot be captured in a single blog. It would necessarily begin by exploring the African heritage brought to the United States. What Raboteau calls the subsequent “death of the gods” that came about through the conversion of the slaves to Christianity.

And then there was the underground, secret church that met where the slave community could worship freely and hear from their own pastors. A gospel free from justifications of slavery or the call to obedience. Sometimes, slave owners didn’t allow any public worship because they didn’t feel they had souls to even save. Another reason for the underground church.

Then there were slave weddings, engaged in secret, even though always under the threat of separation through sale. You could then fast forward and explore the role of their faith in light of pursuing emancipation, their role in the Civil War; fast forward even more to how the Civil Rights movement pulled from slave religion.

But I want to take one slice from the history of slave religion in America that was arguably the most significant. It was the part that was actually pulled from the most by the Civil Rights Movement.

And it was worship, and specifically music and dance.

One thing brought to America from Africa that blended with the newfound Christian faith was the vibrant pattern of music. Dancing, drumming, and singing played a constant and integral part of the worship of the gods in Africa and, later, the worship of the Christian God in America.

Raboteau writes that this was so essential to African religion that it is not an exaggeration to call them “danced religions.” It was dancing their religion, singing their faith, that brought strength to their faith despite unspeakable circumstances.

Think about what are often referred to as the great African American Spirituals, written and sung from the crucible of slavery. They were communal songs – heard, felt, sung, and often danced with handclapping, foot-stamping, head-shaking feeling.

Some might know these songs, but you don’t even know that this is where they were from. Songs like: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”, “Steal Away,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand,” and “Wade in the Water.”

The lyrics were filled with this kind of patience, a patience that waited for liberation—a liberation that few felt would come in their lifetime. In anyone’s lifetime. It was always about waiting for the Lord to return, or when they would return to Him. Such lyrics allowed them to live with a strength, a dignity, a perseverance that was simply not of this world. They knew that a day was coming when wrongs would be righted, when justice would flow down like a river.

Consider the words to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – a song that many of us know the tune of and have heard – but have you ever paid attention to the lyrics?

Swing low, sweet chariot

Coming for to carry me home,

I looked over Jordan, and what did I see
 Coming for to carry me home?
 A band of angels coming after me,
 Coming for to carry me home.

Sometimes I’m up, and sometimes I’m down,
 But still my soul feels heavenly bound.

The brightest day that I can say,
 When Jesus washed my sins away.
 If I get there before you do,
 I’ll cut a hole and pull you through.
 If you get there before I do,

Tell all my friends I’m coming too.

Swing low, sweet chariot
 Coming for to carry me home....

As Lawrence Levine has written, in the spirituals of slave religion, a sense of sacred time operated, in which the present was extended backward so that characters, scenes, and events from the Old and New Testaments became dramatically alive and present. Which is, by the way, exactly what Jesus said we should do when taking the Lord’s Supper.

Jesus’ invitation to “Do this in remembrance of me” was just that—an invitation to make it a sacred time in which the present is extended backward so that His death becomes dramatically alive in the present.

So you can think of the spirituals as being a sacrament to them.

And they continue to be a “sacrament” of sorts to our culture. Without them, there would be little understanding of the sinews of Christian faith in America.

So consider this trilogy of blogs on Puritanism, revivalism, and slave religion as the slimmest of introductions to the foundations of Christian faith in America.

A happy 250^th birthday to them all.

Photo Credit:©GettyImages/Sonja Filitz

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.