Quakers Case Essay

This research paper will ask that the evangelicals were embraced mostly by glowerings not solitary(prenominal) because its the nearest unreal of their African nature rituals but because they film given support to the abolition of thraldom in the join States.Quakers were kn knowledge to be the most vocal headacheing their opposition to break 1s backry there were also other denominations that did not choose slain truth. George Fox, founder of the Quaker group Society of Friends, preached against knuckle downry in the ripe 16oos, but never really took action against it. Even though Fox, a major Quaker leader, was opposed to slavery, other Quaker leaders declare slaves. This was because they interpreted the doctrines of their pietism to exclude slaves. The institution of slavery became a split up issue among Quakers in the Society.Benjamin Lay, for example, was against slavery. Wesleyans, Baptists, and Presbyterians were very vocal concerning their dissatisfaction wi th slavery. (1) However, the main concern was that large amounts of the population were not being exposed to God. They had to resolve whether the larger concern was to end slavery and thus allow many nonchristian citizenry to go to hell after death, or to evangelize the slaves part letting the issue of slavery slide under the carpet. Subsequently, Methodists and Baptists also became the dickens denominations to achieve the earliest triumphes in proselytizing slaves (Lane 184).The first third of the nineteenth ampere-second was a authoritative time for antislavery. Haitian slaves had risen up and alleviated themselves from cut rule in 1803. In England, decades of antislavery agitation led Parliament to end slavery in the British Empire by 1834 In the fall in States, sectional friction related to slavery began in earnest with the bit crisis of 1820. Nor were moody voices silent. drop by the wayside African American ministers sermonized against slaverys cruelties. biwee kly fears of slave forcefulness came to a head in 1822 with the discovery of Denmark Veseys planned slave uprising (2).As the conflict over slavery heated up, and as risings of the Vesey conspiracy broke in 1822, and invent spread about the rebellion of Nat Turner in 1831, a expectant fear enveloped bloodless-hots (5). All these factors ca utilise a few whites to begin to renew the sacred struggle against slavery. The Reverend George Bourne, an Englishman who headed a Presbyterian congregation in Virginia, refused communion to slaveh superannuateders and excoriated bondage ministers. Way back 1784 Methodists were so bold as to say that they promised to swear all Methodists not freeing their slaves within two years (5).opponent racism is definitely amongst the strongest reasons for the abolition of slavery. This argument seems quite feasible, considering the fact that only Negroes were slaves. That is to say, skin color was the most deciding factor in whether person was a slave or a slaveholder (1). Catherine Meeks, professor of African American studies at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, says, It was the white control of the theology on slave-holding plantations, the softness to accept blackens as equals, and the negation of black personhood that led to the separation of the black church building from the white church and to the emergence of a black religious community.(4) fencesitter black churchesmost of them Baptist or Methodistwere not separating themselves from whites because they held a varied doctrinal view of Christianity, notes James H. Cone of Union Theological Seminary. Without exception, blacks used the same articles of faith and polity for their churches as the white denominations from which they separated. Separation, for blacks, meant that, they were rejecting racism that was base on the assumption that God becomed blacks inferior to whites. (5)Even though white Protestant denominations in the 1840s split over the issue of slavery, the congregations of northern Protestants remained entirely as closed to blacks who moved north. Given the increasing racial forbiddance in the mid-1800s, (9) Many Black preachers developed a significant followers across the South among both whites and blacks. John Jasper of Virginia was one such(prenominal) man. Slaves would prolong funeral ceremonies for as long as necessary to bring him to the plantation for the service. And Jasper was as popular among whites. During the Civil War, Jasper won a warm response from the unify wounded to whom he preached and offered solace (9).A long history of antislavery and political activity among Northern black Protestants had convinced them that they could play a major role in the adjustment of the four million freed slaves to American liveliness. In a massive missionary effort, Northern black leaders such as Daniel A. Payne and Theophilus Gould Steward established missions to their Southern counterparts, resulting in the dynami c developing of independent black churches in the Southern states between 1865 and 1900 (10).Predominantly white denominations, such as the Presbyterian, Congregational, and pompous churches, also sponsored missions, opened schools for freed slaves, and aided the ecumenical welfare of Southern blacks, but the majority of African-Americans chose to join the independent black denominations founded in the Northern states during the antebellum era. Within a decade the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) churches claimed Southern societal station in the 100s of thousands, far outstripping that of any other organizations. They were quickly joined in 1870 by a new Southern-based denomination, the Colored (now Christian) Methodist Episcopal Church, founded by indigenous Southern black leaders (11).The relentless gospeler figures were catalysts of the constitutional abolision of the slaves. They fought for the freedom through the exposur e to Gods theoretic equality. Emancipation from slavery in 1863 posed distinctive religious challenges for African Americans in the South. When the Civil War finally brought freedom to previously enslaved peoples, the designate of organizing religious communities was only one element of the larger need to create new anticipatesto reunite families, to find jobs, and to figure out what it would mean to live in the United States as citizens rather than property.Melville J. Herskovits has advanced the thesis that the success of Baptists in attracting blacks was rooted in the appeal of immersion which suggests a fraternity in the slaves mind with the river spirits in West African religions. Others have attacked this position including, the black scholar E. Franklin Frazier who argues that enslavement largely destroyed the social basis of religion among blacks, and that the appeal of Baptists to blacks concerns the emotional content of their worship.Stanley Elkins (whose views were hea vily influenced by what took place in the concentration camps of World War II europium), has argued resembling Frazierthat slavery was so demeaning that blacks (like the Jews in the camps) were eventually stripped of any shred of dignity and humanity, including their faith. John Blassingame, on the other hand, has provided a significant body of evidence that blacks hung on to their religion as a bring of resistance (11).African-American religion dealt with life as blacks lived it. It was about hassle and sorrow, sin and shortcoming, pardon and joy, congratulations and thanksgiving, grace and accept. This version of Evangelicalism provided a wondrous benefit it was qualified to accomplish great things in their lives that were shop atly shouted about. This transition coincided with the period of intense religious revivalism known as awakenings. In the Southern states beginning in the 1770s, increasing add up of slaves converted to evangelical religions such as the Methodist and Baptist faiths. Many clergy within these denominations actively promoted the predilection that all Christians were equal in the sight of God, a message that provided hope and sustenance to the slaves (12).Slave Spirituals became the creative group expression of these aspirations. The Ring war cry was the most distinctive expression of religious worship in the praise service, with African-derived dancing and body movement emphasized. The invisible religion of the slave billet also included conjure, a system of spiritual influence that unite herbal medicine with magic and sometimes gave surprising authority to slave practitioners who believed they could affect whites as healthful as blacks (6).They also encouraged worship in ways that many Africans found to be similar, or at least adaptable, to African worship patterns, with enthusiastic singing, clapping, dancing, and even spirit-possession. It was here that the spirituals, with their two-bagger meanings of religious salvat ion and freedom from slavery, developed and flourished and here, too, that black preachers, those who believed that God had called them to blab out his Word, polished their chanted sermons, or rhythmic, intoned style of extemporaneous preaching. The juxtaposed replication of their religious belief was the evangelicals approach.African Americans, often termed as blacks, was so closely intertwined with their add together life experience that the starting point in understanding the meaning of that religious life must be the total life experience. For them, before they were forced to become unwilling participants in one of the most oppressive systems of slavery that the world had witnessed, the ancestors of the African Americans in Africa were very much a religious people.In their native land the core of their lives was informed by what in western Europe was defined as religion, but what, to them meant as a basic and integral part of life (Jones 1991).Thus, they brought that religio n with them. Blacks responded to the evangelical message, though, for different reasons than those advanced by slave owner-sanctioned preachers. The probable for spiritual equality, and even the hope for earthly liberty, could be taken from evangelicalism, and that was a powerful appeal to slaves. (8)Evangelicalisms informal, spirit-driven style of worship could evoke remembrances of the religious ecstasies of African dance religions, another reason to embrace the faith. Nowhere else in southern society did African Americans find the status that they could achieve as in churches. Some African Americans worshipped in separate black churches, but black Baptists and Methodists had shaped evolving Evangelicalism in general since the earliest revivals. near slave worship was in biracial churches.Evangelicalism took root among African-Americans. Large numbers underwent conversion, baptism, instruction, worship, and lived the life of Christian even in face of oppression. Although, the de velopment of their own religious institutions would await Emancipation and the wars end, there were many thousands of Negro Baptists and Methodists by 1850. Emancipation brought many tangible rewards. Among the most apparent was a significant increase in personal freedom that came with no longer being someone elses property whatever hardships they faced, free blacks could not be forcibly sold away from their loved ones. plainly emancipation did not bring full equality, and many of the most spectacular gains of Reconstruction including the substantial political power that African Americans were briefly able to exercise were soon lost. In the decades after Reconstruction African Americans undergo continued poverty and exploitation and a rising tide of violence at the hands of whites determined to re-impose black subordination. They also experienced new forms of discrimination, spearheaded by a variety of state laws that instituted rigid racial sequestration in virtually all area s of life and that (in violation of the 14th and fifteenth Amendments) effectively disfranchised black voters. The struggle to overcome the bitter legacy of slavery would be long and arduous.Many abolitionists belonged to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ). AMEZ became a platform for preaching against slavery. The ministry was by far the most commonalty occupation of the black leaders in the abolitionist movement (Sorin 101).AMEZ enabled people like Denmark Vesey to plan revolts. Pennington traveled as far as Europe to preach against slavery. He wrote, If the New Testament sanctions slavery, it authorizes the enslavement of whites as well as us (Voices of Triumph 127). Ward was born into a slave family that escaped in 1820. He lived in upstate New York and was an federal agent for the American Anti-slavery Society. Ward actively protested the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. He was also an assistant to fugitive slaves (Voices of Triumph 145) (9).Over one hundred and thirty ye ars after Nat Turner was hanged, black theology emerged as a formal discipline. Beginning with the black power movement in 1966, black clergy in many major denominations began to reassess the relationship of the Christian church to the black community. Black caucuses developed in the Catholic, Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches. The primal thrust of these new groups was to redefine the meaning and role of the church and religion in the lives of black people. Out of this reexamination has come what some have called a Black Theology. (10)The secret meetings of praise of the designer slaves was afterwards institutionalized and these assemblies gave rise to independent churches. The first religious institution in the main controlled and administered by blacks was established at Silver Bluff, South Carolina in the 1770s.The Free African Society of Philadelphia, established in 1778 by two former slaves, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones was an example of one of the earliest formal org anizational activity- more frequent among the free blacks in the urban North (Woodson 1922).Most of such groups were sacred bodies and churches frequently came into existence from the membership of these societies. The Free African Society of Philadelphia, that fresh created independent body, was the mother of two African Amertican churches- St. Thomas African Episcopal Church (later named the St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church) established in 1794, and the Bethel African Church (later becoming an independent organization known as the African Methodist Episcopal Church), which was the first black congregation in the Philadelphia Methodist Conference. In 1894 black Baptists formed the National Baptist Convention, an organization that is currently the largest black religious organization in the United States.There whitethorn be several reasons that evangelist were able to convert slaves, some would argue that this may be attributed to the verity that the slaves saw religion as t he nearest discernible fact to freedom. Still, it is quite notable that the evangelist were able to gather members not only because the African- Americans see their way of teaching as the nearest to their old rituals but also because of the evangelists unerring efforts to abolish slavery in the United States.