Black Biblical Hermeneutics

Before discussing Black Biblical Hermeneutics, it is fundamental to tackle Slave Christianity and Black Theology first as they had profound effects on the religious, predominantly Christian scene in Hoodoo since the time the religion was introduced to the African-American community.

Black Theology provides the African and Afro-American understanding of the Christian God, examining how earnest faith in a just God is sustained, and even strengthened, in the face of horrible and long-standing bondage, oppression, and suffering in a discriminating society.

In the United States, Christianity held not only views about slavery but also on how slaves practiced their form of Christianity. Before the work of the American anthropologist Melville Herskovits in 1941, it was widely believed that all elements of African history, culture, folklore, religion, and magic were destroyed by the horrific experiences of Africans who had been forced to come to the American land. His groundbreaking work established that Slave Christianity existed as an extraordinarily creative patchwork of African and Christian religious traditions. The slaves brought a wide variety of practices, including their mythos, cultus and indigenous religions, and even Afro-Christianity and Islam. Beyond that, indigenous traditions could vary to a high degree across the African continent. 

(Photo courtesy of  Engraving, American, the 1850s)

During the early eighteenth century, Anglican missionaries who attempted to bring Christianity to slaves in the Southern colonies were often seen trying their best to communicate with uncooperative masters and resistant slaves. An unquestionable obstacle to the acceptance of Christianity among slaves was their desire to continue to adhere to the religious beliefs and rituals of their African ancestors as much as possible. Missionaries who worked in the South were especially displeased with the slaves' retention of African practices such as polygamy and idolatrous dancing, which evolved and became known as Ring Shout. In fact, some enslaved who embraced Christianity in America did not wholly abandon the religion of the Old World.

The pantheons of spirits in Africa during the pre-colonial age are akin to the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians regarding diversity. Every deity was attributed to various domains, elements, functions, or favors. In many cases, these deities or spirits were in a pantheon under a distant Supreme Creator known by many names. Many ask why enslaved Black ancestors readily embraced Christianity even though some were polytheists and had a strong attachment to their venerable spirits. Many scholars theorized that the natives saw the religion introduced by the White evangelists and missionaries as similar to their own religion, such as the numerous rituals. 

Other Africans, especially those captured from the Kongo area, were actually, believe it or not, already Christians. Contrary to popular belief, Christianity had already made deep inroads into BaKongo minds even before the slave trade. Historically, Catholicism had been present in the Kingdom of Kongo since the 16th century, and the king converted in the first years of the Portuguese regime. Hence, some aspects of the Christian religion had thus far spread among the population.

This Kongo nkisi (power figure or object) is a 16th-century crucifix, even predating the Transatlantic slave trade as Kongo adopted Catholicism as the state religion. (Photo courtesy of Gift of Ernst Anspach, 1999)

During the antebellum period, slave preachers - enslaved or formerly enslaved evangelists - became instrumental in shaping Slave Christianity and, ultimately, Black Theology. They preached a gospel that was radically different from the one which was preached by White preachers, who often used Christianity to make slaves more obedient to their masters and contended with their enslaved status. Instead of focusing on obedience, slave preachers placed a greater emphasis on the Old Testament, especially on the Book of Exodus. They likened the predicament of the American slaves to the plight of the enslaved Hebrews of the Bible, instilling hope into the hearts of those who were enslaved. Slave preachers were instrumental in shaping the religious landscape of African-Americans for decades to come.

The commonly-held beliefs in the Black Church that were developed due to syncretism of different elements of Africanism and Christianity are:

• The cross symbol is sacred since Central West Africans believe all creation began in cross-cosmogram. The horizontal line divides the land of the living from its mirrored counterpart in the realm of the dead. 
• There is no separation between the sacred and the secular. All things have a spirit force or life. 
• Possession dances and shouts in the communities and congregations occur as the culmination of the union with the spirits and the Divine.
• Humans need set-apart days (Sunday, Saturday, or Friday) to rest.
• The Supreme Creator is distant and unfathomable; as such, it becomes necessary for us to invoke other lesser spirits. 
• Sin makes humans distant from our Creator. Repentance leads us back to God. 
• Spiritual doctors' or spiritual workers' roles are fundamental in communities and congregations. 
• Steps in solving congregants' or clients' problems include the examination of conscience, contrition of sins, the purpose of amendment, obedience to commandments, and fulfillment of penance.
• Rebellion is encouraged if an individual or a community is being oppressed, as Black theology mixes Christianity with civil rights, anti-supremacy, and racism. 
• Biblical texts can be analyzed from the Black worldview and cultural perspective. 

Black Hermeneutics

Bible, like any wisdom, has departments, and each department has different tasks. That's important to know. You can't study literature the same way you learn chemistry, and you can't critique poetry as you would journalism. So too, you can't study one department of the Scriptures the same as you study another.

There's more than one way of dividing up the task of the departments. One way is to talk about approaches to the text.

In one Biblical department, we literally, symbolically, comparatively, and esoterically interpret the Five Books of Moses and the rest of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament for transformation in the Black community (which includes their culture and customs, such as Hoodoo). When we discuss the hermeneutics that can transform the Black community,  we are talking about the biblical exegesis that is vital to the well-being of the discriminated and oppressed society. 

Tasks of Black Hermeneutics

• To formulate a biblical hermeneutic that is liberational and transformational.
• To understand the Bible and God in the Black experience and culture and to break the hermeneutical supremacy and ideological stranglehold that Western biblical interpreters and scholars have long enjoyed.
• To reappraise the ancient biblical tradition and African worldview, culture, and life experience to correct the effect of the cultural, ideological conditioning to which Africa and the entire Black community have been subjected.
• To promote Black culture.
• To understand God according to the Scripture and the Black culture.
• To speak to the needs of historically marginalized people.
• To interpret the Scripture existentially.

To be an efficient conjure doctor, embracing a complete, wholesome Bible, you can't satisfy your requirements knowing Bible in the Fundamentalist or Western Christian mindset. You need a well-rounded curriculum at Black Church. 

Your firm foundation is your knowledge of the introductory text of the Israelite people with the traditional commentaries of Jewish sages, Kabbalists, Black Christian commentators, preachers, and others who explain their meaning. You keep your daily life connected to that foundation with a good grasp of practices and observances that will lead one to liberation - and not just what they are, but where their roots lie.

And the tales and sermons of the Black preachers and the secrets of the Bible are just as vital. Why? Because as much as the Scriptures are about what you know and do, it's also about how you think and feel. 

Black Hermeneutics or African-American biblical studies is your gateway to connect with the Author of the Bible and fight racism; as the Bible stresses, the race is irrelevant: "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor freeman, neither male nor female; for in union with the Messiah Yeshua, you are all one. (Galatians 3:28)

If you want to know the conjure works in the Bible when solving problems and treating various conditions of your patients and clients, my teacher advised me to learn the Bible from a Black (and Jewish) or slave perspective. The conjure tales scattered throughout biblical literature contain 'most of the secrets of the Bible.'

As I always say, authentic Hoodoo is not all about blending and selling oils and spells online to make money. Hoodoo has its own spiritual philosophy, theology, and biblical hermeneutics that are currently missing now in marketeered or commercial Hoodoo, as they are being removed, disregarded, or ignored by unknowing merchants who simply want to profit from an African-American spiritual tradition, thus reducing Hoodoo to just a plethora of recipes, spells, and tricks. 

Tim and I are completely aware that we are not African-Americans, so we are doing our best to retain and preserve the customs and traditions of the slave ancestors, which includes their methodology of interpretation of biblical texts, to avoid unnecessary conflict with the larger Black-Belt Hoodoo community and prevent them from labeling us inauthentic outsiders and our practice as mere 'cultural misappropriation.' 

We acknowledge that this tradition is not ours but only belongs to the Black community. We are just believers who are grafted into their tradition and, by word and deed, embrace genuine Hoodoo spirituality and practices. 

This is all we can do for all the blessings we received from God and our Black ancestors.