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The Church in Africa

30 - 1600 AD: Cradles of Christian Civilization

 

Photograph: The excavated Faras Cathedral from the Nubian Christian civilization in the Upper Nile Region.  Depicted is the birth of Christ, with Mary reclining, surrounded by angels.  Photo credit:  Tadeusz Biniewski | CC3.0, Wikimedia Commons.  The story of Nubian Christianity is remarkable.  At around 540 AD, the warring kings and kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria, and Alodia (all now Northern Sudan) became Christian at roughly the same time.  They reconciled their differences and merged their kingdoms.  This led to a flourishing literary and artistic culture in the Upper Nile region.  See what is known about the Kingdom of Makuria and artwork in the Faras Cathedral: the fiery furnace in Daniel, Mary and Infant Jesus, the Cross and Four Living Creatures, and Madonna and Child with Bishop Marianos.  The Nubians resisted and/or survived Arab Islamic military advances until around 1500 AD.  Here are other Nubian Christian frescoes.  The National Museum in Warsaw, Poland has constructed the Faras Gallery to display the artwork. 

 

Introduction

The selection of perspectives on church history in this section — Church and Empire — has been guided by three factors: (1) to demonstrate that Christianity has not been a “white man’s religion”; (2) the study of empire as a recurring motif in Scripture by recent biblical studies scholars; and (3) explorations of biblical Christian ethics on issues of power and polity, to understand how Christians were faithful to Christ or not.  Christian relational ethics continues a Christian theological anthropology that began with reflection on the human nature of Jesus, and the human experience of biblical Israel.

This page explores Christians in Africa relating to power prior to 1600.

 

Part 2: Wakanda — Not Conquered, Not Conquerors — A Portrait of a Chosen People? Part 2 of a five part series on The Theology of Marvel’s Black Panther explores the portrait of Wakanda as Afro-futurist but also a near-ideal people in a world where colonization is the rule, not the exception. Wakanda is linked to Ethiopia in that sense: an uncolonized Sub-Saharan African nation. The Ethiopian cross is even present in the movie. And Ethiopia's Christian faith is also important in real history, as a force against Western European influence during the older age of colonialism, as well as the modern age of capitalism. Wakanda is also a "chosen people" image also portrayed by the Hebrew Bible, especially when we look at a human community in a garden land, who have received a divine from above, resulting in the power of women and more.

Dr. Vince Bantu, Assistant Professor of Church History at Fuller Seminary and Founder-Director of the Meachum School of Haymanot, joins Mako Nagasawa to appreciate Marvel's Black Panther. We talk about church history, Christian ethics and theology, and the lessons we need to learn today.

Our video series, The Theology of Marvel’s Black Panther, is also found on our Arts and Theology page and our YouTube channel, where we put brief descriptions of each video. It’s a great way to engage people who have an appreciation for the movies, especially if they are also activists at heart, and wonder why we firmly argue that Christian faith is not a “white man’s religion.”

 

Slavery: How the Early Church Got It Right

Presentation given October 2, 2021 to the Reconstruction class. Explores early Christian emancipation and abolition. While Christians did not eliminate all forms of servitude, since servitude for civic penalties, indebtedness, war captivity, and self-indenture persisted, Christians eventually did eliminate what we know as chattel slavery. The presentation examines Old Testament institution of the Hebrew ebed servant, and the New Testament approach to Greco-Roman modes of servitude. We glance at how colonialism and Trans-Atlantic slavery deformed traditional Christian teaching, mindful that more slavery exists today across the globe than every before, and that in the U.S., indebtedness and incarceration show that we have greatly exaggerated the claims that the U.S. has done better than the Bible on “slavery” and its constellation of challenges.

 

Slavery in Christianity, Part 1:  Slavery in the Bible, Slavery Today 

Research and slides which explores the Old Testament, then the New Testament. It looks at what the Hebrew "ebed" service meant in context, and then what Greek "duolos" meant and how the New Testament understood the various ways people could enter servitude. It uses a sociological approach, exploring different ways in to becoming an “ebed” or “duolos,” what rights and responsibilities those roles had, and how one could leave and/or escape.

 

Slavery in Christianity, Part 2:  Abolitionism from the First to Fifteenth Century

Research that demonstrates that, although “slavery” was a complex phenomenon and varied across cultural groups and time periods, Christians understood the Bible as being against chattel slavery, and most other forms as well, and that Christian faith began to abolish slavery immediately, eventually formally abolishing it in northwestern and northern Europe by the 1300’s, despite the political upheavals and rising and falling of various political regimes. I am aware of ups and downs, because kingdoms rose and fell, regimes changed, and governments were not always consistent. Nevertheless, this historical record challenges the narrative that Christianity is ambiguous at best on slavery. Rather, Christianity is the only belief system that has generated abolitionist and anti-trafficking movements. See also Slavery in Islam: From the Seventh to Twenty First Century, which raises serious questions for both Muslims and also secularists who might want to argue that all belief systems are the same, etc.

 

Women in the Early Church

Slides to a presentation given to the 2022 Reconstruction class, accompanying the video. Greek and Roman views of the inferiority of women began with Plato and Aristotle (4th century BC). But Pulcheria was a Christian woman who became Roman augusta in 414 AD and presided over the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils. Empress Theodora was very influential in the 500s. And Irene became Emperor of the Romans by 800 AD. How did this happen? This presentation explores vocation as the main category by which Christians empowered women in roles distinct from family, examining the Catacombs of Priscilla, Irenaeus of Lyons, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas, Montanism and the orthodox reaction to it, Melania the Elder, Paula of Rome, Nino of Georgia, Brigit of Ireland. The presentation also discusses the disagreements between Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen about how to interpret women in 1 Corinthians 11.

 

The Goodness of God and the Healing of Creation According to Athanasius of Alexandria

Slides to a presentation given to the 2022 Reconstruction class. It spotlights Athanasius’ teaching on the following topics: creation; corruption; clinical trial in Israel; cure in Jesus; consummation. This is a good introduction to the broad thought of the early Christians, since Athanasius is considered a faithful spokesman. It also pays special attention to penal vs. medical substitutionary atonement, which introduces us to the contrast between divine retributive vs. restorative justice.

 

Politics, the Church, and Jesus’ Restorative Justice

Slides of a presentation given to the 2022 Reconstruction class. The introduction features John Winthrop vs. Roger Williams to highlight the debate over freedom of religious Conscience vs. Christendom. The presentation highlights Christian accomplishments in health and hospitals, education and schools, land ownership and economic justice, and criminal justice reform.

 

Children in the Early Church

Slides to a presentation given October 16, 2021 to the first Reconstruction class, which was consolidated into the 2022 class. Summarizes the remarkable dignity that Christians perceived in children, who had no inherent dignity or status in pagan Greco-Roman cultures. This impacted views on infanticide, abortion, social welfare, and education. Based on outstanding research by O.M. Bakke, When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity.

 

The Council of Nicaea, the Origin of “the Trinity,” and the Limitations of Human Language

Slides of a presentation given October 30, 2021 to the Reconstruction class. This presentation covers the conceptual and linguistic factors that led to the need to explain the Father-Son relation at the Council of Nicaea, the anti-Nicene reaction, Athanasius’ leadership advocating a pro-Nicene position, and the articulation of the Constantinopolitan revision of the Creed in 381 AD.

 

The Council of Nicaea, the Origin of "the Trinity," and the Role of Political Power

Slides of a presentation on the political history of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, and its later political significance — important because of the role of Athanasius of Alexandria and the later impact of the Chalcedonian Creed on Coptic Church.

 

Christian Mysticism:  Are We Missing Something?

Slides to a presentation. These practices originated in Egyptian monasticism — the Jewish therapeutae and the Christian monastics.

 

Free Will and God’s Grace in Patristic Theology

Quotations from early church theologians; refutes determinism, which inevitably makes God the author of evil. This document shows how Augustine of Hippo was a problematic aberration from all who came before him.

 

Penal Substitution vs. Medical Substitution: A Historical Comparison 

An analysis of the atonement theology ("medical substitution") of early church theologians, including Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, the Odes of Solomon, Justin Martyr of Rome, Melito of Sardis, Tertullian of Carthage, Methodius of Olympus, Athanasius of Alexandria (paper in progress to include later theologians, bishops, and councils).

 

The Impact of Jesus

Text and slides of a message about the role Christian faith played in history, bringing about hospitals, abolition of slavery, education, science and technology, beauty and the arts.

 
 
 
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Church and Empire in Africa: Topics:

This section explores the experience and activities of Christians under various regimes in Africa. We divide this material into Africa Pre-1600, Africa Post-1600, African American Pre-1954, African American Post-1954, African American Spirituality, and the African Diaspora outside the U.S. The time period around 1600 AD is significant because: In the West, the Songhai Empire collapsed in 1591 and the Mali Empire was divided in 1610; in Central Africa, Idris Alooma, ruler of the Kanem-Bornu Empire, died in 1603; in the East, Portugal and the Catholic Church were expelled from Ethiopia in 1632; and on the coasts, accelerated conflict with European colonizers and slave traders

 
 

Church and Empire: Topics:

This page is part of our section on Church and Empire. These resources begin with a biblical exposition of Empire in Church and Empire and the meaning of Pentecost in Pentecost as Paradigm for Christianity and Cultures, then grouped by region: Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, Americas, then Nation-State, with special attention given to The Shoah of Nazi Germany.