Additional question for the reaction paper on Azevedo and Davis: Religion in the Diaspora - Essay Example

Religion in the Diaspora The church may be considered as a congregation of the faithful that accept and practice theteachings and principles of Christianity (Allen 4). Their faith is built upon a described structure or beliefs. This paper will compare and contrast the features of the churches of North America and the Caribbean, and how they treated black people. Both in the Caribbean and North America, the church upheld the belief that a God given order bonded black people to slavery and hence their enslavement was in conformity with Christianity (Allen 16).

The church in both regions, prior to the 18th century, feared that baptizing and allowing the enslaved black population into Christianity would enlighten them and cause the spread of literacy and knowledge of the English language (Erskine 72). This would further enhance cohesiveness among the slaves, who would rebel against the established order and bring down the rate of production in the plantations. In North America, even after the slave masters started allowing their slaves to receive church messages and teachings, they restricted the contents to those of submission (Allen 40).

They were not permitted to get teachings on brotherhood, equality and love within the human society. On the contrary, in the Caribbean, the church played a role in supporting and educating newly freed slaves (Erskine 69). However, the refusal of the Protestant and Catholic churches to adapt to the cultures of the native black people forced them to break away and form their own churches. In conclusion, churches in both regions were initially against the enlightening of black people, who were mostly slaves.

Endless revolts in the Caribbean plantations, the Jamaican Baptist war and effects of the French Revolution forced the churches of the Caribbean to liberate black people (Erskine 72). In North America, Richard Allen brought into being the African American Church to fight against the equal rights granted to white and black people by the church (Allen 51). He termed the rights given to the black people as a means of control over them, and not based on the fact that the white and black races were equal.

Works CitedAllen, Robert. Black Awakening in Capitalist America. New York: Doubleday, 1970. Print.Erskine, Noel. Decolonizing Theory: A Caribbean Perspective. New York: Orbis Books, 1981. Print.