Leaving Christianity behind for African traditions & spirituality

We have been raised in a Western culture that relegates mystical experience to the back rooms of superstition and nonsense. We were conditioned to believe that the use of energy to manifest change had to be an incomprehensible experience. Our own Western religions supported this dichotomy. Judaism and Christianity both clearly separated our minds from our spirits. And so, even though we have increasingly longed for the

fulfillment, guidance and inner peace that can be supplied only through spiritual activity, we have tended to seek it in the form we were conditioned to believe it must express itself. With no disrespect intended, I believe this is part of the great appeal of Santeria.

In the Diaspora, the logical, laser like relationship, between man and the other energies that Oludumare had created, was subjected to the Fun House mirror of Christianity. The pure African understanding that life and spirituality

were one experience was re-shaped to conform to the views of the slave masters. What began as a necessity for survival, turned into religious dogma, forever separating the new religion of Santeria from African Orisa worship. The distortions were simply too great.

Yet, what remained as the Afro-Caribbean Experience has great pull to many Westerners. Again, with no disrespect intended, the many contradictions that exist in the philosophy, as a result of the attempted mix of Christianity and African Spirituality, fail to be addressed by its adherents. Why? Having been conditioned not to question the contradictions within the Christianity they grew up with, there is the inherent implication that one must not question

contradictions in any religion, that God is unknowable, that it is beyond our understanding to perceive genuine truth. Indeed, there seems to be a certain comfort level in not understanding. It is the same familiar territory we grew up with in Western religion. Such is not the case in African Orisa worship. The logical construct and relationships between the various energies, the ability to understand the present as well as forecast the future, all lead to the inescapable conclusion that we are capable of knowing! We are capable of understanding! We are capable of reaching Orisa status and siting with the Counsel of Elders at the feet of Oludumare!

There seem to be other pulls as well. For many years, too large a percentage of Westerner's involved in Orisa worship were disaffected from society. Often, correctly so. Certainly the Black American, ignored, abused and penalized by our predominantly WASP power structure, could find the familiarity of the religion that had provided their support system during the harshest years of slavery and economic deprivation, along with a sense of re-connecting with their roots and proud cultural background. It was a heady and alluring combination. Other disaffected groups and individuals found similar comfort, along with the satisfaction of belonging to a like group of individuals who, by their dress and behavior, were obviously separate from the society they felt

excluded from. It was an " in your face" way of declaring your independence.

African Orisa worship was, by its structure, more adaptable to social and economic conditions. Its' energies were less frozen in the unalterable Dogma that Christianity had conditioned us to accept. In Christianity God had spoken and that's the way it was! In Ifa, Oludumare had also spoken but He had said: "Here are the road maps to finding the paths of truth, use them!" Because of their logic and consistency, the unalterable principles (as opposed to unalterable rules) have, and continue to, work in a host of different times,

political and cultural settings. We are encouraged to seek knowledge, and to use it. When one feels empowered, one is not afraid.

One can only feel empowered if the worldview you accept empowers you. If you graft on to the Orisa, the disempowering concepts of being born in sin, a Devil enticing you to display bad character, a set of unreachable objectives to reach Heaven, the evil of success and the shame of pleasure, you have created two sets of rules, and a frightening lack of consistency.

Certainly, by my very practice, understanding and teaching of African Orisa worship, I express my own views regarding the two philosophies. I believe, as

more and more people are able to throw off the anchors of conditioning of a failed philosophy (Christianity) that weigh them down, traditional Ifa Orisa worship will become more attractive.

Fajuitan

What manner of mental slavery and colonization does a Eurocentric form of Christianity have over Black evangelicals today that they would credit white ministers who would tell you that African spirituality is ungodly and even demonic — and then look there for urgent help when the rubber meets the road?

African people in the United States have long been brainwashed to believe that Africa held nothing of value. Our long-established societies, cultures, religions and customs were presented as savage, heathen. We were told to be grateful for our enslavement. We were told that enslaved Christianity was better than living as free African people. We were terrorized into giving up our names and much of our spirituality.

Even in this trauma, African people in the Americas reshaped the predominant Christianity. We mixed and remixed a slave religion with our African spiritualities and those we encountered in the New World into a faith that emphasized freedom.

Despite the mass conversions of the Second Great Awakening, and the persistent missionary work of Catholic and Protestant clergy, African Americans retained their gods, cleverly and defiantly fusing them with Catholic saints and a Christian Holy Spirit.

These cultural retentions are still in evidence in Black Christian denominations as well as white ones — that Black preaching style that White so brazenly appropriates is based on the African call and response tradition. Being overtaken with the Holy Spirit connects Pentecostals of all races back to Africa.

And there is the music. What would the pBlack church experience be without that organ and tambourine, that rhythmic hand-clapping and stomping feet? These African elements give life to your Christian doctrine and accentuate your love for Jesus. Yet outside of a Christian context, they are taken as pagan and harmful.

In a world that has been gaslighted into believing that civilization has always been centered in Europe, most of us can’t conceive of what pre-colonial Africa looked like. The telling of world history, ancient civilizations and world cultures is maliciously narrow and almost always excludes the contributions of Nile Valley civilizations, never mind the rest of the vast, wealthy and diverse continent.

These lies are the reason some Black Christian pastors call African spirituality demonic.

Black Christians, your Bible tells you how important it is to honor the God of your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Your Bible emphasizes that Jesus is of the house of King David. You are Christians because the Apostle Paul connected you to that ancestral line, though you were a gentile, and thus would otherwise have no seat at their Jewish family table.

Those connections are there because ancestral lineage matters. You have been told to respect other people’s ancestral stories, but to dismiss and even demonize your own. You are discouraged from even knowing about your African history. This is the insidious result of a white supremacist Christianity that permeates American soil.

In America, we have been led to believe that Euro-American history is better than ours, purer, more godly — that “the white man’s ice is colder,” as the Black vernacular has it.

Black Christians, many of you are so afraid to even learn about African spiritualities lest they keep you out of the kingdom of God. You won’t even glimpse the rich spiritual traditions of Benin, Congo, Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia. 

Christian pastors such as the Rev. Jamal Bryant teach that you can’t even burn sage. You cannot honor your ancestors, wear eleke beads, do yoga, get a spiritual reading from a mambo or Babalawo. You can’t buy your feminine hygiene products from a Black-owned business because the owner mentions crystals, herbs and sage. Your miseducation makes you believe that practitioners of African spiritualities worship these objects. Do you worship the cross or your Bible?

Black Christians, this religious zealotry demands an unsustainable double consciousness. W.E.B. DuBois described this schizophrenic condition that Black people have had to contend with as a byproduct of being a “problem people.” He described it as a two-ness, of constantly looking at oneself from within and from without. It is disorienting, and dear Black Christians, it is time to give up that ghost.

Black Christians can reclaim the African-ness inherent in Christianity, but you must first come out of that wilderness that deprives you of your culture. You can acknowledge that Christianity borrows heavily from the Nile Valley cultures and religions from which it was born, appreciate and value the Egyptian and Ethiopian presence in your Bible. You can learn about Ifa, Vodun and Khemetic spirituality without the fear instilled by colonizers who tried to buy your soul with your bodies.

This is where the idea that African spiritualities are demonic came from. Let it go, and get free! Acknowledging that our faith is a blend of our African-ness and Christianity is not blasphemy, it is an acknowledgment of your ancestors who survived the Middle Passage and slavery. 

Those ancestors retained remnants of African spirituality outside of the master’s understanding for you. These were spiritual tools our ancestors bequeathed to us to survive the terror of slavery, revolt and resist ongoing oppression. Our oppressors would have us be docile with their white supremacist-infused Christianity. Instead, we remember these African spiritual tools. We celebrate them. We call upon them.

DM

IN CONCLUSION:

It is time for us to separate from the western Christian ideology that has kept us separated for so many years, regardless of having a weaker connection with deity spirits & the true God, this is a system that has enslaved not only the bodies but the minds in the spirit of millions of people just like me and you. We must understand that many practices have adopted this Western philosophy or customs to please their masters here in America. No matter the practice in ANY ATR The true “goal” or foundation is the evolution and betterment of the human experience, liberate the mind, the heart & the spirit of our people, not only our self. It is time to rise up to a higher calling and to know, NOT BELIEVE OR HOPE that the ancestors are calling us back home.

KhAn

Ashè Ibukun Nsala Malekun