Originally posted on St. Djan Darada Fellowship:
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love you.” Jesus said…
The black image of Jesus Christ is not new. AME Bishop Henry McNeal Turner declared that “God is a Negro” not long after the Civil War. The fathers of black liberation theology such as James Cone and Giraud Willmore led many preachers to cast away the popular Nordic/European paintings of Christ and paint brown skinned … More Beyond Black Jesus: Seeking the Universal Depth of Early Christianity
Back in 2010, a young seminarian spoke at the Ancient Faith & Afro-American Christianity Conference in Aniston, Alabama. These were a few of his words: “And in many ways, if the Lord wills I know that if I have a ministry, it will be in many ways the fruit of the Brotherhood of St. Moses … More FSMB 2022 Conference Reflections: Baptized In God’s Time and Way
Usually when we think of African-American Christian leaders who spoke and acted out against injustice, a number of Civil Rights era figures come to mind; MLK (of course), Fannie Lou Hammer and the like. Or, if we want to talk about self-help leaders in our community, Elijah Muhammad and Marcus Garvey come to mind. Yet, … More Of Desert Fathers & Maroons: Congolese Christian Experience
The deities and religious thought of Egypt and Nubia also prepared the way for the Christian faith to come into Africa. The region’s polytheist faiths had high expectations that were to be embodied by the pharaohs and embraced by all. The sun god, Ra, was the source of all good things. A king was to … More How Christianity Came to Africa: Foundation of Nile Valley Gods
As in the Levant, Christianity in Africa has roots in the Israelite/Jewish religion. The story of Noah’s descendants populating the earth has the descendants of Ham settling Egypt and points west and southward along the Nile River (Genesis 10:6~20). An ancient name for the Nile is Gihon, one of the four rivers mentioned in the … More How Christianity Came to Africa: Hebrew Preparation
Between 10,500 to 7,300 BC, the area known today as the Saharah Desert was lush and habitable due to monsoonal rains falling on the land. There were enough waterways and wetlands to support crocodiles, hippopotamuses, and other aquatic beast as well as terrestrial creatures such as elephants and lions. Animal herders from the Nile River … More How Christianity Came to Africa: Blacks of the Ancient Mediterranean
I was born not long before Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. Despite the riots in Detroit and Watts, there seemed to be a hope that human brotherhood and the beloved society would end racism and racial injustice. Somewhere between April 4th, 1968 and the mass incarceration of low level black drug offenders in the Regan, … More Seeking a Greater Restoration
It never fails to amaze me how many conscious and woke brothers and sisters overlook African Christian Saints. It isn’t hard to find memes about the glories of the golden eras of Pharaonic Egypt on social media. Many African-Americans have had an affinity for various branches of Islam. There is a growing Hebrew Israelite identity … More Living an Orthodox African-American Christian Life: Embracing Our Saints
I read the lives of the saints from the Prologue of Orhid every morning. This is how I created a very long list of African holy men and women and created my book, Become All Flame: Lent with African Saints. A member of my parish gave me a copy of the Ethiopian Synaxarion. I find … More Abba Akaweh: An Orthodox Link to West Africa?
Desert Fathers Dispatch 