Christianity, a white man's religion?

By Claude Wilson, Freelance Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

INASMUCH AS Scripture, science and secular history have attested to the fact that dark-skinned people were politically and numerically dominant in the ancient world, many among us have questioned the Judeo-Christian faith by denominating it as " a white man's religion' which is not the historic religion of the Negro race.

Yet, the fact that black people have played an extremely important role in biblical and classical Christianity has been a neglected factor in theological education, this according to Rev. William Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas In the pursuit of Blacks in the Holy Scripture Reverend McKissic begins at a fundamental and inspired statement in Genesis 9:18-19, "Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Ham was the father of Canaan. From these the whole earth was populated". A similar thought, he said, is expressed in the New Testament book of Acts 17:26.

According to Scriptures, Noah is the father of all mankind; therefore he inevitably had to be the father of the Negro race. Noah's Negro son, Ham, is the father of the Black race, and according to Reverend McKissic, Ham was not cursed dark, he was born dark.

Ham's sons were Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan. In biblical reference the Hamites were people who would be classified as Black or Negroid in the Western world today. Cush was the progenitor of the Ethiopian people. The words "Ethiopia" (Genesis 2:13), a man with a (sun) black face, and "Cush" (Genesis 10:6),

Hebrew word meaning black, are used interchangeably in Scriptures.

The word "Mizraim" is translated in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible as "Egypt" and in the Fausset Bible Dictionary it means "children of the sun". The ancient inhabitants of "Egypt" called this African country Kam or Ham, which literally meant "the black land"; and they called themselves Kamites or Hamites, meaning "the black people".

Those who emphasise the curse of Ham, says Rev. McKissic, need to remember that some of the descendants of Ham, were quite prosperous. They built great cities, such as Nineveh and Babylon.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the Hamites became the most energetic of the offspring of Noah of the postdiluvian world and the technological and creative genius demonstrated by these people even baffle modern minds. Case in point are the Ethiopian and Egyptian Pyramids, the invention of paper, pulleys, iron making etc.

A careful and honest research of the scriptures reveals that some of our favourite Bible characters are descended from the Hamitic and Canaanite tribes.

Jethro was the father-in-law of Moses (Exodus 18:1) whose daughter Zipporah was identified in Scripture as an Ethiopian. The Bible records a controversy regarding Moses' marriage to this woman of Hamitic descent (Jews were forbidden to marry Ethiopian).

Joshua, the son of an African woman, was a descendant of Ephraim, the younger son of Joseph and his Egyptian wife Asenath. Joshua was the successor to Moses as leader of the Hebrew people.

Ranking with Moses as one of the most commanding figures in the Old Testament, David, Israel's greatest king, was the great-grandson of the Canaanite Rehab. She was to become the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz in the ancestry of the Davidic kings; she is one of the four women named in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus Christ.

David was a light-complexioned man, practically compared to the dark-complexioned Philistines, who were direct descendants of Ham (1 Samuel 17:42; Genesis 10:14.

Solomon was the son of David by a Hamitic woman named Bathsheba. Bathsheba means daughter of Sheba, which perhaps reflects her tribal roots. In Genesis 10:7, Sheba is listed in Ham's family. Solomon's complexion and hair features are described in Songs of Solomon 5.

The Ethiopian Eunuch, whose nationality is obviously African, must have been an intelligent man, for he was in charge of the treasury of his nation, according to Acts 8:26-39.

Historically and biblically speaking, the real Jesus was not born in Europe; he was born in Bethlehem in the Middle East and was embraced by people of African, Semitic and European descent. Jesus Christ was the fulfilment of many Old Testament prophesies regarding the Messiah who was to come (Isaiah 9:6). Jesus identified with common people and they received Him gladly.

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