The orange, yellow and pink regions on the map are mainly “heathen”.
The word “heathen” (by 971) means someone who is not Christian, Jewish or Muslim, someone who does not worship the god of Abraham. By the 1800s it had gained the added meaning of someone who is unenlightened or uncivilized. By the 1900s it had become an old-fashioned way to say “pagan”.
“Heathen” is used all over the place in the Authorized or King James Bible of 1611. Since about the 1970s, though, it has become rare in Bible translations. It is now seen as derogatory even by White dictionary makers (since at least 2008).
Back in 971, when it first appeared in written English, it was applied to the Danes (Vikings). Since then it has been applied to Irish Catholics (seen as not truly Christian), to Black, Asian and Native Americans, and to much of the rest of the world.
Many Christians saw heathens as being in league with the Devil, as being sunk in moral darkness. Following the example of Jews in the Bible, Christians saw themselves as having the God-given right to make war on heathens and to make them slaves. For example, the King James translation informs us:
“Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.” (Lev 25:44)
From religion to race: While Scripture excused genocide and slavery in Anglo America in the 1600s, it did not work so well by the 1700s: too many Black and Native Americans had become Christians. They were no longer heathens! But as luck would have it, nearly all former heathens had darker skin. So Anglo Americans began to see themselves as morally better not because of religion but race.
The word in the Bible that heathen was translating was goy or goyim in Hebrew, which in the Greek New Testament becomes ethnoi or ethnikoi. It meant “the nations”, meaning the other nations, not the Jewish one. That has given rise to four English words: goy, ethnic, Gentile and heathen.
“Heathen” comes by way of Bishop Ulfilas (aka Wulfila). In the late 300s he translated the New Testament from Greek into Gothic for the Visigoths. Many of his words spread to other Germanic languages, like English.
His heathen was haithno. There are two ideas about how he came up with that word:
- He gothicized the Greek ethnos, possibly by way of the Armenian word hethanos.
- He modelled it on the Latin word paganus (pagan). Pagan meant someone who lived in the countryside, but as the cities Christianized, it came to mean a non-Christian. Likewise, heathen was someone who lived on the heath, who was now seen as non-Christian.
Matthew 6:7 in the 1611 edition of the King James Bible.
The English translation of ethnikoi in Matthew 6:7 through the years:
- 900s:
- 990: hæþene (Wessex Gospels)
- 1000s:
- 1100s:
- 1200s:
- 1300s:
- 1395: hethene men (Wycliffe)
- 1400s:
- 1500s:
- 1531: hethe (Tyndale)
- 1599: Heathen (Geneva)
- 1600s:
- 1611: heathen (AV/KJV)
- 1700s:
- 1800s:
- 1833: heathen (Webster’s)
- 1881: Gentiles (RV)
- 1900s:
- 1901: Gentiles (ASV)
- 1952: Gentiles (RSV)
- 1962: pagans (Lattimore)
- 1970: pagans (NAB)
- 1971: heathen (TLB)
- 1978: pagans (NIV)
- 1989: Gentiles (NRSV)
- 2000s:
- 2001: Gentiles (ESV)
- 2006: Gentiles (RSV-2CE)
- 2009: idolaters (Holman)
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- John Trudell – flips the word “heathen”.
- The god of Abraham
- Bible
- Terms
- dichotomous thinking
562
Abagond 
“They were no longer heathens! But as luck would have it, nearly all former heathens had darker skin. So Anglo Americans began to see themselves as morally better not because of religion but race.”
And these former “heathens” didn’t have the capacity to be civilized. They couldn’t possible appreciate Handel’s Messiah, have the same intelligence as whites or be trusted with the same kind of rights that normal white people understood to be inalienable to themselves.
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@michaeljonbarker: Which makes it very puzzling that one of the supposed “objectives” of the European colonial project was to “civilize” these “savages”. They thought they should be “civilized” yet then also thought they were incapable of it. What a hypocritical, contradictory mess.
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I am a heathen s*vage who appreciates Handel’s Messiah.
But I am with Hatuey, the Taino king, who when about to be burned at the stake, was informed by the gold-loving Christian mass murderers that Christians go to heaven, he chose hell.
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@mike4ty4
I started to make sense of the contradictions with the help of the notion of the “rhetorical ethic” from Marimba Ani’s book Yurugu. The idea that conversion to Christianity was a noble goal was intended for export to the people who were the targets of European aggression. It was hypocritical by design, though a sort of intuitive emergent design from the subconcious of a culture bent on domination. When religion became an unsuitable handmaiden science would step in (scientific racism).
The “heathen” were being sold snake oil while losing their land, freedom and even their conception of the divine. They’d no longer burn in hell after death, they’d just endure hell on earth. Taotesan can contradict me if I’m wrong but I read that there are more native African Christians in South Africa than white Christians. Given what the invasive Christian deity evidently endorsed you’d think that the statistics would be a little different. But it’s not much different elsewhere, where Africans were taken as slaves. Christianity became a part of culture even though it was imposed under harsh circumstances.
Here’s a translated excerpt of the Spanish Requerimiento read to the Tainos in the Caribbean.
[Basically, our god gave us these lands so become our slaves, or else we’ll make you our slaves and, btw, it’ll be all your fault; our hands will be clean even though you were minding your business when we traveled across the ocean to harass you]
One of these Pontiffs, who succeeded that St. Peter as Lord of the world, in the dignity and seat which I have before mentioned, made donation of these isles and Tierra-firme to the aforesaid King and Queen and to their successors, our lords, with all that there are in these territories, as is contained in certain writings which passed upon the subject as aforesaid, which you can see if you wish.
[…]
So their Highnesses are kings and lords of these islands and land of Tierra-firme by virtue of this donation: and some islands, and indeed almost all those to whom this has been notified, have received and served their Highnesses, as lords and kings, in the way that subjects ought to do, with good will, without any resistance, immediately, without delay, when they were informed of the aforesaid facts.
But, if you do not do this, and maliciously make delay in it, I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their Highnesses; we shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their Highnesses may command; and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey, and refuse to receive their lord, and resist and contradict him; and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault, and not that of their Highnesses, or ours, nor of these cavaliers who come with us.
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@ Abagond
That is one seriously euro-centric map.
@ mike4ty4
I think that this can be resolved by differentiating two forms of racism. A relative racism that considers the object of its racsim as inferior for the time beeing, but not irredeemable so. From that position “educating” and missionizing makes sense. Opposed to that an absolute racism, that considers the gap between the assumed races as either god-given or later scientific and unchangeable.
I think both thought systems competed against each other and also led to different forms of rule. This also explains how some racists were against slavery or genocide.
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The word heathen is essentially referring to the nations who were not God’s chosen people; idol worshippers or those groups of people or nations of which the covenant was not established with. Psalm 147:19-20 He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.
The Israelites were forbidden from associating with heathens due to their propensity to engage in acts of idolatry. (Joshua 23:7 and 1 Kings 11:2).
Joel 3:2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (The current division of the land of Israel between the Palestinians and the jewISH people, two heathen nations).
Maccabees 3:48 And laid open the book of the law, wherein the heathen had sought to paint the likeness of their images. – (Painting of all previous black biblical images as being white during the iconoclast period).
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@Abagond said: “From religion to race: While Scripture excused genocide and slavery in Anglo America in the 1600s, it did not work so well by the 1700s: too many Black and Native Americans had become Christians.”
Where are the scriptures that excused genocide and slavery??
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@ Origin
Brilliant posting as usual.
“Taotesan can contradict me if I’m wrong but I read that there are more native African Christians in South Africa than white Christians.”
No.Sadly, I cannot. I was shocked and incredulous myself to find out that most South African Black people , if you ask them, are Christian, according to the latest consensus. Goodness, sometimes I can’t walk to the shops or gym, without a Xhosa- speaking Seventh Day Adventist trying to give me the ‘good news’.
“The “heathen” were being sold snake oil while losing their land, freedom and even their conception of the divine. They’d no longer burn in hell after death, they’d just endure hell on earth”.
Excellent insight.
“even their conception of the divine”. which brings to mind the words of another outstanding scholar: Dr. Francis Cress Welsing:
“The most disastrous aspect of colonization which you are the most reluctant to release from your mind is their colonization of the image of God.”
I share John Trudell’s worldview:
“After the battle for the land, came the battle for the spirit of the People. Some defended themselves by becoming drunks instead of giving into the spiritual disease that Columbus and the other Europeans had brought with them.
Those who had the disease called themselves Christians. Those who did not were called heathens. The Europeans themselves had once lived in tribes as free people, but then, thousands of years ago, came the disease.
The Christian disease is based on guilt, sin and blame, on male authority and violence, on lies, on taking more than you need. It is not based on respect, love, harmony or peace. Christians see the Earth not as their Mother, but as something to rape.”
and
“The great lie is that it is civilization. It’s not civilized. It has been literally the most bloodthirsty, brutalizing system ever imposed upon this planet. That is not civilization. That’s the great lie, is that it represents civilization.”
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@Abagond said: “The word “heathen” (by 971) means someone who is not Christian, Jewish or Muslim, someone who does not worship the god of Abraham.”
Christians worship a white Jesus Christ, which is essentially an abomination of the Messiah infused with white supremacy. jewISH people, that is, those who wish they were Jews, are actually Amalekites, a heathen nation who God once ordered the Israelites to destroy completely (1 Samuel 15:3). By the way, the Amalekites are the same people occupying the land of Israel today, referring to themselves as jewISH.
“ISH” is a suffix, meaning: having the qualities or characteristics of (but not being the real thing, but here, not being the real Jews).
Muslims worship so-called Allah, the name simply means power. Furthermore, without a shadow of doubt, a pagan moon God with so-called prophet being Muhammad, an illiterate pedophile who married 9 year-old girls, plagiarized from the Bible due to the Israelites refusing to follow him. Subsequently, Muhammad had his followers to elevate and view him as a prophet and had them to worship a meteorite rock at Mecca. Go figure. This also explains why there are so many Arab countries with an emblazoned crescent moon on their national flag. In short, Islam is garbage!
https://www.google.com/search?q=arab+countries+with+crescent+moon+on+their+flag&biw=1198&bih=735&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwictNah_-PLAhUS_mMKHY2QCDEQ7AkINA
Even in the Quran, it clearly tells its followers to worship the God of Abraham and to follow the prophets thereafter, not Allah.
3 Sura 84 say: “Say, “We have believed in Allah and in what was revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Descendants, and in what was given to Moses and Jesus and to the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are Muslims [submitting] to Him.”
Quran-The Food 5:20 Recall that Moses said to his people, “O my people, remember GOD’s blessings upon you: He appointed prophets from among you, made you kings, and granted you what He never granted any other people.
Quran-Aliz 33:7 And when We exacted a covenant from the prophets, and from thee and from Noah and Abraham and Moses and Jesus son of Mary. We took from them a solemn covenant;
Quran The Food 10:68 Say: O People of the Book, you follow no good till you observe the Torah and the Gospel and that which is revealed to you from your Lord.
The only people who truly worship the true God of Abraham or God of Israel are the Israelites!
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@blakksage
I’m not Abagond but:
Leviticus 25:39-44 (NIV)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
39“ ‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves. 40They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. 41Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property of their ancestors. 42Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. 43Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.
44“ ‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There is a clear contrast here between the servitude of Israelites and slaves from the “nations”. The latter “become your property” and “you can bequeath them to your children” and they can be “slaves for life”. There is not a huge jump from that to chattel slavery during the “Age of [European] Discovery”. These biblical slaves are explicitly personal property or “chattel”.
Exodus 21:12 & 20-21
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
12“Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death.
20“Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
At least murdering your slaves wasn’t encourged by the Law (although it doesn’t specifically mention the death penalty here unlike v.12 ) but you could beat them to within an inch of their lives since “they are property”.
As for examples of genocide being condoned, there are many (the Israelites were basically told to kill the Caananites and take the land), but I’ll give an example from 1 Samuel 15
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ ”
[…]
The Lord anointed you [Saul] king over Israel. 18And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; wage war against them until you have wiped them out.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They were ordered to put to death men, women, children and infants even the livestock. They were supposed to wage war and “wipe them out”. That’s not a war of conquest and subjugation, that’s pretty explicit genocide. Furthermore, Saul wasn’t thorough enough in that he intially spared the Amalek King and some of the healthier animals so God rejected him as King.
If you read some of the Bible accounts and read the Spanish Requerimiento posted above you can see the connection. The Spanish claimed that the Biblical God ruled the world and established Peter as the head of the church while the Popes were Peter’s successors. Since the Papacy gave the Caribbean islands to the Spanish Crown, it was essentially a donation by God and the heathen were therefore obligated to acknowledge the dominion of Spain. Following the Biblical tradition, “righteous” violence was to ensue if they resisted the “LORD Almighty” in any way.
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@Taotesan
Yeah, many black people are pretty devout Christians. Granted, the church was often an important institution for reasons other than religious doctrine and sometimes even aided the struggle under the guise of the white man’s religion. In the New World, elements of African sprituality were sometimes retained under the cover of Jesus and the Saints. In a sense, a weapon was adapted to serve a useful purpose in difficult circumstances but I share your opinion that the religion was not a valuable gift.
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@Origin said: “The Spanish claimed that the Biblical God ruled the world and established Peter as the head of the church while the Popes were Peter’s successors. Since the Papacy gave the Caribbean islands to the Spanish Crown, it was essentially a donation by God and the heathen were therefore obligated to acknowledge the dominion of Spain. Following the Biblical tradition, “righteous” violence was to ensue if they resisted the “LORD Almighty” in any way.”
Your points distilling the difference between “servitude” and “slave” during biblical times are well taken. However, this still doesn’t explain slavery or genocide that was committed during the 1600-1700s under the heathenistic Spaniards during the raping, dashing the head of infants against trees and outright plundering of the Taino natives of the Caribbean Islands and elsewhere. There was nothing relating to “righteous violence” when referring to the murderous Conquistadors.
Also, I find it ironic that you’d refer to Peter as being the head of the Catholic Church when even the Christ the Messiah referred to him as Satan and a “stumbling block.”
Matthew 16:22 Peter took Him (Jesus) aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
So, … does the God of Israel, the Ancient One, the King of Terror, manifests Himself through Catholicism and the Pope these days??
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Speaking of the King of Terror that reminds me of Mathers “Sinners of an angry God”. His preaching through out the “New World” was followed by an increase in suicides where ever he went. He believed God protected him from disease allowing him to deliver disease infected blankets to locale Indians which is biological war fare. It was all God’s will in his depraved mind.
Martin Luther comes to mind. He was anti semetic and his ideas laid the ground work for the Holocaust that came later.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism
Protestants were just as violent as Chatholics.
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Martin Luther saw the Christian Church as the “New Isreal” and believed that God had abanded the Jews. Manifest destiny and God’s will became one in the same and justified genocide and conquest.
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“Manifest destiny and God’s will became one in the same and justified genocide and conquest.”
.
@ michaeljonbarker
The irony: each side believes that God is on their side, and will present “holy” words to justify and vindicate their cause (crimes/sins/horrors).
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The word “heathen” as i understand it in fundamental Christian/ theology terms is a person who performs non- Christian sanctified customs. I also understand it as a pejorative used by colonialist who viewed indigenous people as such.
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I’m a heathen and proud of it!
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@blakksage
“There was nothing relating to “righteous violence” when referring to the murderous Conquistadors.”
Well, I certainly don’t think it was righteous, hence the quotes. However, the Spaniards justified their violence by saying they had the backing of the Biblical God. The Bible has several instances of people committing divinely sanctioned genocide that wasn’t considered “wrong” since the victims were “wicked” and supposedly deserved destruction. The Spanish could, and did, appeal to that Biblical precedent by claiming to be God’s agents by virtue of being given the land by the Pope who was supposedly his representative on Earth. The point was that the Bible has ample material to support genocidal violence if it is your wish to carry that out with an air of legitimacy. This was not lost on the Christian nations during the Age of Discovery.
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@taotesan
Thank you for sharing that powerful quote.
It is also an ironic quote. Ironic because the earliest forms of Christianity were deeply influenced by the leadership of female disciples and their values of oneness with all persons and the earth.
I remember some years back reading about how Christianity was spread in Rome by Roman women. They were excited by the promise of an egalitarian belief system that stressed love and equality between the sexes. They were especially inspired by the gospel of Mary Magdalene.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71649.The_Gospel_of_Mary_Magdalene
Since Rome had a great variety of religions in the city and the empire, the first Roman Christians were ignored. It is only when the numbers of Christian women and men reached a critical mass that threatened the existing order with demands for gender equality (a big no no in that highly stratified and deeply patriarchal society) that the Roman authorities became alarmed. They began a campaign of persecution against the subversive Christians, but were eventually overcome by the new religion.
At that point, Christianity was hijacked. The Church hierarchy decided to bend the new religion to contemporary Roman mores and power dynamics instead of changing society to reflect the values of the earliest disciples. The contributions of the early female church leaders were suppressed and supplanted by the desire for earthly power and patriarchy on steroids.
Centuries later, the invading Europeans spread a Christianity that was nearly the opposite of the first versions of the faith. Therein lies the irony. By the 1500s, European Christianity became just one more means of destroying the lives (and freedom) of people in the Americas, Africa and Asia. In their hands, the cross became a cudgel. The earth and its people outside of Europe were declared ‘heathen’ and available for exploitation by the Doctrine of Discovery.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/vine-deloria-jr-conquest-masquerading-as-law/
We still live with the consequences of those decisions today.
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Afrofem said “Christianity had been hijacked.” Boom
I wasn’t aware of the history of early Christianity in Rome. Thanks for that.
On another note it could be said that democracy has been hijacked as well.
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Another irony is that it seems that Christianity developed from Ancient African spirituality. There are certain connections that aren’t likely to be coincidence. For example Jesus vs Horus, the Ankh vs Cross, Isis/Osiris/Horus vs Father/Son/Holy Spirit. Egypt even had a symbol of an afterlife Lake of Fire just as the Book of Revelation does (and the Pope dresses up like Osiris heh). It would certainly be ironic for remixed/corrupted African spiritual concepts to be brought back to Africa as the light of salvation.
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The word “heathen” to me is used in the same vain as the word “savage ” it is used by elitist who are pretentious jerks..
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@ Origin
Those are interesting connections. You are correct about the recycling of ideas in religions and other part of human experience.
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@Mary Burrell
Good point about how ‘heathen” and ‘savage’ have become synonymous. They are often used interchangeably in movies and on television.
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@Afrofem: I just realized the words are like you said used interchangeably they both have connotations that Europeans and white Americans in the early history of this nation and other parts of the world used to racialism to oppress others groups of people who were not white.
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*racialize* ^^^ typo
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@ Mary
Yeah, and they still use those words without shame behind closed doors.
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“Yeah, and they still use those words without shame behind closed doors”
.K*ff r is the word that the equivalent of the that awful word for African Americans. The word is derived from the Arabic word,’ kafir’ which literally means infidel or unbeliever. It is a very violent and dehumanizing word for Black people in South Africa. Even though I identify as Black,I am not recognized as such, so that perjorative is not used against a person like me. Specific derogatory words like ‘boesman’ (bushman) are used.
Before the change to a democratically elected Black government , the profuse use of this horrible word was used contemptuously by the whites against Black people.
The one benefit of the supposed end of apartheid, that whites can’t use it freely anymore as it is a criminal offense to do so . The great restraint that whites are now forced to employ, makes it come out sideways. You just know that they are dying to use it. One can accurately quess it used prolifically behind closed doors.
An anecdote: A friend of mine was called this and she made a citizen’s arrest and laid a charge of crimen injuria against her employer. We still laugh about it as she described her employer as having wide eyes when she realized her ‘mistake’.
I absolutely hate this word and the white person using it in my presence will find themselves at the nearest police station.
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^ ellipsis: is
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@taotesan: I do remember being in the book store at the mall in my city and picking up a book called the K**fir Boy many years ago didn’t know what that word meant until i looked it up later and learned it was a pejorative and very ugly word something like the N-word.
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I don’t think banning a slur is going to change how anybody feels. But if it makes people feel better, I suppose there is no harm in it.
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No harm in banning it, I mean. Not in using. Want to make it clear.
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This topic brings to my mind the idea of international adoption motivated by religion. The children are truly victims. People who adopt because they believe they are “saving heathens” or rescuing are not acting in the interest of these kids. An article in Mother Jones about this is horrifying and haunting.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/christian-evangelical-adoption-liberia
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@vanishingpoint
The guy in that story already has four biological children, and he intends to adopt four more? Must have quite a lot of money. Anyways, yeah, I’ve heard that a lot of Christian and Muslim charity type organization ins the Third World are hardly as benevolent as they seem. A lot of it is basically them trying to spread their religion.
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Afrofem says:
“By the 1500s, European Christianity became just one more means of destroying the lives (and freedom) of people in the Americas, Africa and Asia. In their hands,”
We ( most of humanity) have lost countless autonomous cultures, religious beliefs systems and languages, because the man from the North did not know how to open his eyes and see people. The pricelessness of a world of what could have been, irretrievably lost. I far as I am concerned, he can take his ‘gift’ and shove it. (I know I might lose favour with many commenters here), but the ersatz European Christianity is a shoddy substitute for the indigenous religion and belief systems. I am aware of the historical process and reasons why so many dark-skinned people around the world have become Christian, though. In a subjective narrative, there is a mixture of emotions regarding my fellow beings in this regard, but mostly compassion, empathy, incredulity , mixed the idea that something is profoundly lost not gained, but also each to his/her own. If I had not had not been such an alienated invisible as a child, who vaguely understood then the words propaganda and indoctrination, I could possibly be a Christian,too.
If I had a another life, then it would something like the sacred holistic and ritualistic worship of the universe like the San, Candomblé of the Yoruba, Fon and Bantu of Salvador in Brazil, the ancestral worship belief in a creator God (Unkulunkulu) of the Zulus or Amazonian animism. The alienation wrought on this heathen through colonialism translates that I cannot reassemble those stolen parts of myself.
I have lost my ancestor’s belief system and language in to to and forced through indoctrination to accept Christianity. I do not. I prefer my own thinking and the stone cold hard truth and reality on earth rather than a foreign religion telling me I am a sinner. I am not . I am a human being. I can try to apprehend the sacred mysteriousness of the universe without an invaders’ religion.
The man of the North thinks he ‘knows’ everything (about us), yet still has not been able to see human beings. There are people who ‘see’ him loudly and clearly and not for a minute thinks he is a superior being. I would rather be a heathen than a ‘civilized’ white Christian or atheist racist.
Imagine our world if the man from the North had only visited and looked with eyes with gratitude appreciation.
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@Mary Burrell
The book you are talking about is written by Mark Mathabane, which gives a good account of the life in (Alexandria) township. We both know the ugliness of those words.
@Benjamin
If you were commenting on my post, I get what you are saying. However, ‘slur’ implies a slander on character,whereas the perjorative word is more of a violating device to dehumanize, not merely to mischararacterize. The subject does not see the object as human, employing the strongest disrespectful offensive verbal device to strip of dignity.
I would also agree that banning the word, would not stop those who have internalized feelings of false superiority of thinking it, which brings about other attitudes of racism that the victim sometimes does not even know he/she is experiencing racism, assuming the absence of the racist epithet to be evidence of absence of racism.
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@ blakksage
I do not know chapter and verse on the Bible’s support for genocide and slavery, but Origin made a good start. The Bible and genocide deserves a post. I have read the Bible straight through. One of the most shocking things about it is how God condones the genocide of those living in the Promised Land.
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@ taosetan
Excellent point. Seeing the humanity in others is not on IQ tests.
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@ blakksage
I did do a post on the Bible and slavery:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/does-the-bible-say-that-slavery-is-wrong/
and the Curse of Ham:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/the-curse-of-ham/
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My mother used to call me “heathen” jokingly as a kid when I behaved cheekily. It’s used a lot in older kid lit like “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” or “Anne of Green Gables.” There’s always some missionary trying to save the heathen.
It’s sad because these white folks in these books, reflecting the prevailing attitudes of the times (and the present) see “civilizing the heathen” as a Christian mission, kind of like a Sunday School bake sale. It’s disconcerting to realize that what they take so lightly is the stuff white supremacy is comprised of wholesale.
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@ ThatDeborahGirl
I’ve noticed that heathen white folks in Amerika tend to go by their preferred name, PAGAN. The ones who are into witchcraft, satanism, etc…
Pagan has the exact same meaning and connotation as HEATHEN, except you seldom ever see white people refer to themselves as heathen. It’s like heathens are the other, darker, more unsophisticated, less civilized, or less than — pagans.
But then, it could simply be just my imagination running awry …
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“This erroneous opinion about the Black people has seriously injured them through the centuries up to modern times in which it appears to have reached a climax in the history of human relations. And now we come to the third actor, and that is Ancient Rome, who through the edicts of her Emperors Theodosius in the 4th century A.D. and Justinian in the 6th century A.D. abolished the Mysteries of the African continent; that is the ancient culture system of the world.
The higher metaphysical doctrines of those Mysteries could not be comprehended; the spiritual powers of the priests were unsurpassed; the magic of the rites and ceremonies filled the people with awe; Egypt was the holy land of the ancient world and the Mysteries were the one, ancient
and holy Catholic religion, whose power was supreme. This lofty culture system of the Black people filled Rome with envy, and consequently she legalized Christianity which she had persecuted for five long centuries, and set it up as a state religion and as a rival of Mysteries, its own mother.
This is why the Mysteries have been despised; this is why other ancient religions of the Black people are despised; because they are all offspring of the African Mysteries, which have never been clearly understood by Europeans, and consequently have provoked their prejudice and condemnation. In keeping with the plan of Emperors Theodosius and Justinian to exterminate and forever suppress the culture system of the African continent the Christian church established its missionary enterprise to fight against what it has called paganism.”
These are the words from George G.M. James’ magnus opus “Stolen Legacy.”
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@ Afrofem
It might appear that I am taking right past you, but I know next to nothing (not like Abagond) about Christianity in terms of accurate history pre- colonial period, so cannot add anything to your reply.
@ Abagond
@Afrofem
@Origin
@ All
Dr George G. James was an outstanding Guyenese scholar who died under mysterious circumstances the same year his “Stolen Legacy” was published,. If you haven’t read it or its not in your collection, I think it is very important book to read. To quote Prof. Ben Jochannan, “If you ever dare to read the works of George G.M. James,you will never again be the same as before you did. He stands at head of the line with Akhenaten, Ramesis, St. Augustine, Terrence, and so many others who heeded the warning, “Man know thyself”
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^^Guyanese, Rameses
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@ taotesan
Thanks so much for that snippet from Dr. George G.M. James book, Stolen Legacy. I will definitely have to add that to the reading list.
I do remember reading about how Egypt was the cultural center of the Mediterranean basin in the ancient world. A lot of Romans, Greeks, Levantines (Middle Easterners), Iberians (ancestors of modern Spainiards and Portuguese) and Anatolians (ancestors of modern Turks) flocked to Egypt for tourism, education and spiritual quests.
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@Afrofem
Not that it really is relevant to your post, but I don’t believe there were large numbers of Turks in Anatolia until the 1000’s. They weren’t native to Anatolia, but migrated there long after Egypt’s heyday.
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@ Kartoffel
How is the map seriously Eurocentric?
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@ Benjamin
I stand corrected. I will have to do more research on the people who inhabited Turkey in antiquity.
The period that Egypt received ancient Roman, Greek and Iberian tourists was well after Egypt’s heyday. Rome was at its height, so around the 200s C.E. Greece, the area now known as Turkey and Iberia were then part of the Roman Empire.
Egypt had a lot of cultural authority, but no military power.
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One question I have been trying to figure out why so many African people and brethren in diaspora, still embrace Christianity in spite of its brutal re-introduction in its altered form.
Is it, in part, an ancestral and intuitive understanding of the philosophical and religious aspects of the ancient cultures of Africa (Egypt is the antecedent to Greek philosophy) in spite of the original form that was ‘mangled’ by the Europeans?
I say this in way of observation of Black people’s sincere apprehension and reverent worship in their ‘new’ religion, when that aspect of sacred worship has always been part of African expression. What I am trying to understand, is it possible that the Black re-adoption (jazzification) in spite of its modern day roots, is a sub-conscious memorization of their ancient culture? And if so, why still pray to a white God or Jesus?
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@ Abagond
It examplifies the incapability of Westerners to conceputalize non-abrahamic religions. The terms “chinese religions”, “korean religions” and especially “folk religions” don’t tell you anything. Just as well they could have written: “Here be other stuff.”
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@taotesan
“…why still pray to a white God or Jesus?”
I think Africans and African descent people pray to a White God or Jesus because they have effectively Africanized the rest of the worship process.
African Christians throughout the Diaspora have all added kinetic elements such as sacred dancing, swaying and rhythmic clapping to worship services.
They have also Africanized the sermons with call and response elements, rhyming, shouting and speaking in tongues.
Finally, the musical portions of worship have been thoroughly Africanized with celebratory songs, rhythms and other African based stylistic touches.
In a significant minority of Black churches and Christian homes in the US, there are depictions of Jesus as a dark-skinned figure. So even God/Jesus have been Africanized for large portions of the Diaspora.
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@Kiwi
Would you mind telling me what your definition of “Eastern” is? Would you group Islam with Buddhism and Hinduism as an Eastern religion. How about Eastern Orthodoxy?
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@ Afrofem
I have been meaning to get back to you. Thank you for your considered and incisive reply that has expanded my understanding of ‘Black Christianity’.
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As Always, so many ideas that I need to think deeply about. It may be wrong (and perhaps nitpicky) of me, but I get bugged by that kind of map used at the top of your post – tho’ it’s not your fault certainly. I get bugged – 1) because it’s the usual north on top projection, and 2) because when world religions come up, the Baha’i Faith is not even mentioned (7+/- million believers) and Shinto is almost always mentioned (2.4 +/- million believers), and that actually may be somewhat relevant (tho’ perhaps only tangentially) to the topic of this post – since the Baha’i Faith is seen by many as a Middle Eastern religion (darker than white, plus the added suspicion of the barbarism of the Middle east), and Shinto is a Far Eastern religion (perhaps considered “nearly white” and non-violent/impotent, ‘specially since the West ‘beat them’ in the 2nd World War).
Back to lurking. 🙂
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