Perhaps four….Bibles and Popes and Bulls and Bucking and People, sorry Cargo and God
By Sankofie | Published | No Comments
In earlier years Christianity spread out in the Roman Empire itself, places in Europe, North Africa, Near East, The Triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire: A Historical Analysis – History Tools, before reaching out to places beyond. Remember now, that Christianity was born in the Roman Empire, but not in Rome. Rome, starting out as a small city or city state on the Italian Peninsula, had found it necessary to build empire through the acquisition of other geographical spaces near and far. Once a city with its own democratic form of Government, Rome became the capital of the Empire. Rome and its Empire seemed to have been a culture of persistent intrigues of wars, mass and other killings, beheading, crucifixions, torture and other atrocities.
The Roman Empire at its peak incorporated many territories and occupied a significant portion of earth space. Roman Empire Map: Unveiling Its Vast Territory – Roman Empire The Emperor was the sole authority. Remember now that Jesus the Christ was born in Judea, under Roman rule, as Judea, part of the Kingdom of Ancient Judah, had been conquered by Rome. While he and his small group of Jews were severely prosecuted while spreading the Christian Gospel, their teachings found favor with the likes of Paul of Tarsus a Jew by ancestry and heritage and a Roman citizen since Cilicia (Turkey) was part of the Roman Empire, Saul who became Paul and Emperor Constantine 1.
(How Was Paul Both a Jew and Roman? – Philip Meade), Influential Figures in Early Christianity: Jesus, Peter, Paul, and Constantine • Philosophy Institute.
With the rise of Christianity, from manger to palace, its movement i.e acceptance and practice, was now secured and indeed legalized throughout the Roman Empire. But remember now it cannot stop here, as vast a space as that was, it needs to reach the whole world, known and unknown. Roman Catholic Churches were put upon the land in all the places they went inside and outside of the Empire and lands and peoples were bullied and bucked into them. But by the time the Christians got to us, it really was not primarily and purely about spreading the Gospel anymore. They in fact had more profitable to them reasons for their actions in the Caribbean. Conquest, Christianity, commerce, haughty living, lifestyle diseases all got intertwined into an unholy….did someone say hell? Well, we will just say mess since we have no hell. All of this sanctioned and sanctified by the Christianity of the Popes and their Papal Bulls.
So we come back to our local and imported indigenous families, bucked into war over their own lands and other belongings. It is incredulous to watch how Christianity became the birthplace of unholy alliances that worked to the detriment of so many. Plantation economy would not have striven so well without the Bible that was crafted for the occasion. What is now commonly called the Slave Bible was commissioned by the Society for the Conversion of Negro Slaves and published in 1807. This Bible removed more than 90% of the Old Testament and 50% of the New Testament. 19th-cent. Slave Bible that removed Exodus story to repress hope goes on display | The Times of Israel. So the Bible is now weaponized. It has nothing bad to say about slavery and encourages everyone to submit to and obey their masters. With the power of the Bible and the authority of the Popes the Bulls were bucking. Near and far, far and near.
This ‘Slave Bible’, which was carefully designed to teach my ancestors not just to read but to seriously understand that their enslavement was God approved and that the most important reason for their existence was to obey master backra massa. This Bible was focused-ly fashioned to teach them a Christianity that mandated a continued sinking into oppression, a changing of the understanding of God as taught to them by their ancestors and a surrendering of their sovereignty. Perhaps if we would wear a sprig of rosemary behind our ears we would get some clarity. Were we now to become instruments of our own degradation and demise, welcoming enslavement as a wonderful state of Godliness, worshiping the God of those who insisted that they torture and kill us, become Christians? We should follow the teachings of this book that speaks about a forgiving God who always seems to come up very, very short on the forgiving but wants to keep the God part?
God, with or without his Son needs to come out of all of this confusion smelling clean. Yes? Remember we are all still the enslaved, the enslavers and the descendants thereof, holding to the existence of One God, as troublesome as that is. We need perhaps to figure out how they did not figure out that God was already revealed to all of creation? Since we did not speak English we had not used the word God, but the potency was not diminished when we used Attabeira, Nyame, Chukwu, Olodumare, Osanaboa, depending on our ancestral language. So why were we being sent fake Bibles, Pope written bulls, Pope authorised religion and Pope ordained people to reconfigure our core being i. e. buck us? Were we not, for generations before, following the teachings, worshiping one God and loving our neighbours in community? Why the severe abuse? Were you establishing the perfect environment for teaching us to read and making us disciples of Christ? So the good Christian Bible, with its good Christian teachings, brought through the Son, Jesus the Christ, authorized the breeding of Bulls, by Popes who thought it righteous to buck us into the told and untold atrocities which it was so much more blessed for them to give than to receive.
Our ancestors, a very long time before others came to their lands, had relationships of balance and harmony with Creator God, nature and themselves. That was and is the true Bible, cosmic balance, written in scriptures of existence. The unburnable covenant.
