African Americans and the Bible - Book Report/Review Example

The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible by Allen Dwight Callahan This book is an outstanding piecethat tackles the intriguing perception of African Americans towards religion. Callahan succeeds in highlighting the numerous setbacks that got into the way of African Americans as they tried to embrace religion. The author discusses how the perception of the African Americans changed as they learned new aspects from the bible. This book exposes how African Americans applied the scriptural teachings in their life and how they related their circumstances witch Biblical narrations. This paper will review the book highlighting the main ideas that the author highlights. In chapter one, the author focusses the initial perception of African Americans to the bible. These people had just arrived from a continent where Christianity had never existed. However, they were serving as slaves in a foreign land and did not have the freedom to enjoy basic human rights as individuals with a free choice. Callahan provides details concerning the realities that b surrounded African Americans during that time. The chapter delves deeper to elaborate how these slaves got a chance of hearing about the Bible1. The author highlights that African Americans lacked any form of education, and did not exhibit any skills in reading and writing. This left the people to rely on what they heard from the evangelists. The author mentions the significant contribution of the evangelical Christians to introducing bible teachings to African Americans. A critical aspect emerges in this chapter that serves to highlight why Callahan titled it as the ‘talking book’. During that time, it was illegal for African-Americans make any efforts towards any productive learning2. Therefore, the evangelical Christians strived to help them learn reading despite the prohibition. For these African Americans, the Bible appeared as a ‘talking book’. They never imagined that the bible was a written text. The author uses this chapter to introduce the context of the book. Callahan titled the second chapter of the book as ‘the poison book’ and introduces the controversial interpretation of the bible3. Whereas evangelical Christians strived to teach the slaves the value of the Bible as an inspired text that supported freedom and equality of all human beings, supporters of slavery twisted some Bible accounts to create the impression that the bible supported slavery. Moreover, the author mentions that the shipping and distribution of Bible copies to the slaves had been declared illegal. In the third chapter, the author creates a contrast between the misinterpretation of the Bible and the truths that it contained. He gave this chapter the title ‘the good book’. In this chapter, he succeeds in outlining the biblical view against slavery. Moreover, the bible was a fundamental literature that showed that God created all human beings as equal. This chapter helps the reader understand the reasons why African Americans exhibited an immense willingness of studying the Bible. The author does well to highlight the different perceptions of the bible at this time. The disharmony of the meanings of some of the accounts helps the reader to understand this potential factor that contributed to the persistence of slavery for many years. The fourth chapter delves deeper into the issue and highlights the perception of the Saharan and transatlantic trade systems. Through these trades, the slaves got an opportunity of establishing contact with the Judeans4. These contacts exerted influence on their understanding of the bible narrations. The author makes use of poems to emphasize some hard realities that surrounded African Americans. He tackles the Saharan trade; the author mentions the effects of the trade on the West African regions. The chapter describes the figurative bleeding of the West African nations because of the loss incurred each century as Americans demanded for more slaves. In order to give the reader a broader understanding of the trading systems, the author highlights the trends of the slave trade and discusses how these affected the status of the African Americans. The title ‘exile’ is relevant because the Africans Americans were on a forced exile. In some situations, Europeans used terror and force to capture the slaves5. The author elaborates the devastation of the African Americans as people who had no form of contact with their homeland. The African Americans compared their story to the exile accounts of Israelites at different times. The African Americans exile appeared permanent because they feared that their servitude in America would persist beyond their prediction. Callahan gave his fifth chapter of the book a title that matches one of the Bible books presenting the account of Moses, ‘exodus’ this Bible narrative was the central consolation to the African Americans that slavery would cease, and they would enjoy being a free people6. Moreover, the author provides details of an additional significance of the narrative. From this chapter, the reader can connect with the passion that African Americans related the Exodus story. The author includes scriptural quotations in order to create emphasis and relevance of the exodus story to the African Americans. Callahan presents the reader with the analogy that the African Americans had created to describe their story. The author succeeds in helping the readers create a picture of the yearnings and anxieties of African Americans. Callahan does not forget to highlight the sad realities that African Americans faced. Moreover, this chapter discusses the great migration that occurred. During this migration, African Americans moved from the remote states to states that were beginning to adopt industrialization7. During this time, the enslaved African Americans used imagery from the exodus narration to explain the events transpired. Callahan goes further to elaborate the anticipated emancipation of African Americans according to their interpretation of Psalms chapter sixty eight verse thirty one. There is an elaboration of the reference of African Americans as Ethiopia. African Americans believed that they were a significant people that God would use to bring salvation to the globe. The author helps the readers understand the perception of the African Americans regarding the prophecy of the psalmist. Moreover, he established a connection between the European reference of Africa as ‘Ethiopia ‘. For numerous centuries, the term Ethiopia referred to denote any aspect of the African Americans. Callahan also highlights the issue of scientific racism that challenged the relevance of the creation story8. Since African Americans had embraced the equality theme from the Bible, the emergence of the scientific racism theory affected them negatively. Callahan also highlights the anticipated return of African Americans to Ethiopia. The author further discusses the effects of the civil war and the events surrounding it. In the last chapter of the book, Callahan discusses how African Americans perceived Jesus Christ, explaining why the author calls it ‘Emmanuel’. He explains that blacks had various perceptions about Jesus9. Callahan details all these perceptions helping the reader to understand the fundamental beliefs of African Americans. In addition, the author presents a postscript as a conclusion, and emphasizing the previously described topics. In this postscript, the authors tie together his ideas. The postscript helps the reader to reevaluate the context discussed previously. As described above, Callahan succeeds in highlighting the numerous setbacks that got into the way of African Americans as they tried to embrace religion. The author discusses how the perception of the African Americans changed as they learned new aspects from the bible. The author reveals the differing opinions of African Americans highlighting their reasoning from the interpretation of the biblical scriptures. This book exposes how African Americans applied the scriptural teachings in their life and how they related their circumstances with Biblical narrations. Evidently, the author succeeds in bringing the reader to acknowledge the basis of the African American religion. Through the scriptural citations and analogies presented by the author, the readers can familiarize themselves with the challenges faced by blacks in the new world. Callahan manages to connect his readers with the experiences of embracing Christianity. Moreover, the author acknowledges the contribution of the evangelical Christians in introducing Christianity to the enslaved Africans. Callahan’s work is unique and his analysis of the case of African Americans is critical in theology because it shows that religion has different values in the lives of people. Work Cited Callahan, Allen D. The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. Internet resource. Read More