In this Black Lives Matter moment, on the eve of the two hundred and forty-fourth, celebration of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, in the year of their Lord July 3, 2020. Transformed from being a colony of Great Britain, while I could do, like NPR did, I’ll just include the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBe5qbnkqoM
When I identify as a Maroon, of Black Liberation Theologist Cultural Recovery orientation, I’m positioning myself in the traditions of Crispus Attucks, Frederick Douglass, John Horse, and other of maroon heritage. But to remember Fred’s words on the subject of religiosity…
“I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative, that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. “
What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference--so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Frederick Douglass
The Nation of Israel, had been conquered 5 times, the fifth time by the Roman Empire. As they hunted and killed his cousin Yocanon (John the Baptist), the Romans hunted Ieshua during the 3 years of his ministry, persecuted his followers, crucifying them, feeding them to lions, for sport and entertainment, and then hijacked Ieshua’s religion. Then, after crumbling as an empire, that disintegration initiated the Dark Ages, in Europe. To be sure, the rest of the civilized world, in Africa, China, Asia, Turtle Island, didn’t experience a Dark Ages… all those places experiencing complex, urban civilizations, populated by communities of color, as we call them today, in a temporarily majority white cultural context, as if that was normal.
The so-called Western World, by which it is meant, White Western world, then, using a reconstituted weaponize form of Christianity (Christian Soldiers, Crusades, Colonization. Cavalry, Ku Klux Klan, Nazism, White Supremacy), proceeded from attempting to liberate the Holy Land, to spreading the word of a Caucasianized Jesus.
They were clear about what they were doing, all non-white people, practicing their indigenous spirituality, were enemies of Christ. This included the non-white Christians in Africa, and Asia, who had also participated in the Council of Nicea.
Never mind, that the oldest book in the world was a Bible (The Peshitta), written in the year 450 AD, in Aramaic. The oldest physical Christian churches in the world, being in Ethiopia, where there is a Christian majority to this day. It can be reasonably argued that Christianity has African, non-White Supremacist, roots. Aramaic Christians have never led wars of conquest, never had slaves or trafficked in slavery, never burned women at the stake as witches, never had Inquisitions, or ethnically cleansed continents.
Yeah, I’m going to have to side with Frederick Douglass on this one: I’m going to have to love the egalitarian, Sacred Feminine, socially just and active, meditative, nature loving, practical, and humorous, Christianity of Christ. “Love your Enemies”, which in his Aramaic tongue (Ahebw Labwheldbhaybhaykhun) is instructions on how to do it. Those instructions require breathwork, and meditative skill, which then drives your action in the world. It means you create a better world, rather than emoting, protesting, destroying.
When Ieshua was asked why do people suffer, and he says, “You Suffer Because You Love What Deceives You – Acquire My Peace Within You, The Child of True Humanity Lives Within You. Seek It You Will Find It. Birthing that Child of True Humanity, is achieved by united your inner feminine, with your inner masculine, and creating that Child of True Humanity. You love your enemy, by seeing, and healing, and realizing the truths they don’t want to face out of fear.
I can draw a clear line from the White Roman soldiers who first beat him without mercy, gave him a crown of thorns to wear, then gave African Yeshua vinegar when he thirsted on the cross, finally drove a spear into his side, to the kneeling of Derek Chauvin, on the back of George Floyd.
Rome is cruelty.
America combines the mind games of Egypt, with the cruelty of Rome. Making you think, there is something wrong with you, for wanting freedom. “That’s not a chip on my shoulder, that’s your foot (or knee) on my neck”. – Malcolm X, another maroon, who loved freedom.
If I love this country, but it doesn’t always love me back, as the Delaney sisters reminded us, then as experts in creating multiracial complex urban civilizations, we must love America.
“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” ― James Baldwin