Why did African Americans convert to Christianity?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I wonder how much the idea of learn his ways/tricks and take his power might have come into it. Would that be a West African sort of thinking mode, does anyone know?

[Elok]

All I know of "West African thinking" comes from those Nigerian prince e-mails. If I can't find a decent book on Zoroastrianism or ancient Sumer, I'm sure as hell not going to find one on West Africa. That's way down the "stuff historians get prizes for writing about" totem pole.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Well you know, that's too bad. Hard to believe there isn't a few books worth of interesting there...

[Kidlicious]

There's that one civilization from Civ3, can't remember the name.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Mali?

[Kidlicious]

Mali?

That's Civ4. I was thinking of Nubian. I guess Mali counts too.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Songhi?

Wait - Nubian would be Nubia, actually, and that's Ethiopia/Somalia, wrong side of the continent.

[Lorizael]

i think this may also explain the sincerity issue: if you abandon your old god(s) to pretend to worship another, then you are offending both old and new, albeit in different ways. also, christianity's message about forbearance in this life leading to reward in the next is attractive to people who have little or no practical way of improving their real life circumstances.

But how literally do you mean "offending old and new"? Modern religions (with the exception of a few that try for syncretism) tend to view other religions not as inferior but simply incorrect. Other hypothetical gods are not worse, less powerful, or less moral but non-existent. If that's the case, you can't sincerely convert to another religion without completely changing your mind about which gods are real (and can't offend what isn't real).

My limited understanding has always been that in the "old days," religion was more D&D like: there were a lot of gods that people acknowledged were real, and you were picking and choosing which to follow based on whatever preference (whichever one grants you the coolest powers). (The first commandment says don't worship other gods, not don't believe in other gods.) I don't really know how true this scenario is, but if it holds water, then god-switching seems more palatable. You're not making an ontological shift, just a shift in allegiances. Perhaps West Africans had a similar point of view? (It's probably racist to lump together all the cultures on one side of a continent. )

[giblets]

I think it would basically be for the same reason that they all switched to speaking English. The slaves were taken from many different african cultures who didn't have a common language and probably didn't worship the same god and have the same religious practices. It's hard for a religion to survive if it's not shared with other people. Just as they adopted the dominant language of the country they lived in, they also ended up adopting the dominant religion.

[Elok]

IIUC religious scholars do distinguish between monotheism and monolatry, the latter being worship of one god while acknowledging that others do exist. This question would probably be easier to answer if we knew anything at all about the religious values of, say, pre-Christian Angola, because those undoubtedly would have colored the slaves' perception of religion in general.

[Ben Kenobi]

Did not see the other thread. Blah.

[Kidlicious]

Please combine this thread with mine. BK should never have started it, since I already did.

[Ben Kenobi]

I didn't start the other thread. Aeson did. Anyhoo. Last post in here.

[Bereta_Eder]

who knows why

[C0ckney]

But how literally do you mean "offending old and new"? Modern religions (with the exception of a few that try for syncretism) tend to view other religions not as inferior but simply incorrect. Other hypothetical gods are not worse, less powerful, or less moral but non-existent. If that's the case, you can't sincerely convert to another religion without completely changing your mind about which gods are real (and can't offend what isn't real).

My limited understanding has always been that in the "old days," religion was more D&D like: there were a lot of gods that people acknowledged were real, and you were picking and choosing which to follow based on whatever preference (whichever one grants you the coolest powers). (The first commandment says don't worship other gods, not don't believe in other gods.) I don't really know how true this scenario is, but if it holds water, then god-switching seems more palatable. You're not making an ontological shift, just a shift in allegiances. Perhaps West Africans had a similar point of view? (It's probably racist to lump together all the cultures on one side of a continent. )

well, i must confess to being rather ignorant of the finer points of west african theologies, but i do know that peoples who came into contact with christianity often accepted the christian god without accepting christians' claims to his uniqueness. that is a reason why i think that sincere conversion, which, as you say, means rejecting all other gods, thus negating any offence, would make more sense than pretending.

i think gribbler makes a very good point with his analogy to language.

an interesting comparison might be made with some of the syncretic religions that obtain in brazil. these combine elements of christianity and african belief systems (in fact, it's a subject of fierce academic debate just how much of these religions really come from africa and how much is the result of innovations that occurred after the slaves were brought to brazil and began to influence and be influenced by the local culture; and then there's the indigenous element, but anyway...). i wonder why similar religions didn't emerge in north america. or perhaps they did, and i just don't know about them.