The Sabbath And Africa.
African traditinal religion is connected to the African culture.
African religion has been marginalised by main stream religions.
These main stream religions are of a European stock. The type of
stock which has a colonial flavour. The colonialist are the primary
chronoclers of African Religion. However there tends to be doubts
about the authenticity of the vericity of the what was wrtien.
Tourists also areported to have been the principal authors of the
African traditional religion. It becomes therefore expendient that
one carefully reconciders the terms that have been employed by the
colonial European historians, who have writen extensively about the
African religion. A Jewish king once wrote that Ethiopia shall
stretch forth his hand to Jehova1.
Many scholars who
have studied the African Religion have attached deragotory terms to
it. These terms have given the implication that Africans are
heartless and they can't achieve the technological advancements which
the Europeans claim to be the proponents of. Where as the above
qoutation from the Jewish king proves that he did not regard the
African as a primitive heathen who is beyond the quality and
conception of the true diety. Notice also that the Jewish King,
before highlighting the theological disposition to Jehova, a
political statement is first made. The idea that in Africa there are
powerful Princes, rulers of empires and kingdoms who adhere to a
Religion that regards the true God as their God. The theological
supposition follows after an acknowledgement of the politic
supriority.
Furhter analyisis of
the Jewish qoutation2
reveals that Egypt and Ethopia are synomiously equated to “Kingdoms”.
Therefore, anyone of a keen sense of investigation would ask a
question, “Who then is refered to as 'God's people'? ”3.
God's people is therefore Israel, Egypt and Ethopia. The Euro-centric
thought that Africans are barbaric saveges that are inherently
Godless, is refuted by these Jewish writings. Many have been made to
hate their African religion, due to misnomers by the European
colonialists who have tried to play down the Jewish historical view
point of the Africans as being theologicaly and Politicaly enhanced.
African traditonal
religion has been intepreted in the light of other religions.
“Christianity” has been a major nemasis of the African religion.
The brand of Christianity concerned with, however is the type that is
coated with a colonial savour. Leaving a theologically purgent smell
with regards to how African Tradtional Religion is viewed. The term
African Traditional Religion however implies that African has a
traditional religion. This is not entirely true. This however also
would suggest that there is an African culture. Yet this is also not
true. There are African Traditional religions and African Cultures.
It wouldn't be theological accurate to suppose that all of Africa has
a religion and a culture.
This paper will
however deal with how the Sabbath Day can be a day of celebration to
the African. The paper will focus on native African Religion and the
development which lead to the forgetfulnes of the Sabbath Day as a
Day of Celebration. Attention will be also divvirted to other regions
that had similar experiences as a Africa. This is done as means of
showing that the African story is not an isoloted case, but that
there has been a deliberate attack on African Traditional Religion
and it's observance of the sabbath.
The sabbath day can
be celebrated in Africa as a day for the African. This is not meant
to relegate the African to a stage at the back of the European. This
means that Africans are free to enjoy what the theologians would
regard as the blessings of the sabbath, without feeling like there
are pawns under the shodow of the white mans religion. As Africans we
are inclinde to belive that the Sabbath was made for the Jews, but
outside of Palastine Africa hosts a large number of sabbath keepers.
Ostentatious Sabbath keepers include mostly the Ethiopians. These
people adopted Sabbath keeping a millenium prior to the Europeans,
“while the forefathers of the Caucasian race were still pagans,
Ethiopia was Christian, and, for those times, a civilized nation.
When the peoples of northern Europe were running wild over the
plains, and natives of the British Isles were discoloring their
bodies and
worshipping heathen gods, Ethiopia's peoples were worshiping the God
of
heaven”4.
This apperent
connection with the God of heaven implies heavy sabbath keeping.
Ethiopia prides itself as a mighty civilised nation decades after the
so called first world Europe merged into the world scene as a
“civilized” nation. The sabbath is very much native to Afica
incontrast with the spurious sabbath of the whites5
which has gained ground in most of the African States. Many African
nations are oblivious of the fact that the Sabbath is a universal
religious Festival, yet Europe is destittute of this blessing. If one
wishes to take this into account it would be much interesting to
notice that while the Paul was preaching the Gospel in Europe, in
places like Italy, Greece and its surrounding Islands of Cypress and
Sicily, that particular gospel carried with it a sabbath flavour. Yet
in Africa according to Michael Geddes the Sabbath had been kept in
Africa as For Back as during the time of Solomon. By the time
Socrates arrived in the scene in around 390B.C Ethiopia was basking
in the sun of Sabbath observence.
In Central Africa
the Seventh day sabbath was kept just like in Ethiopia. Black
Africans have a unique proclivity toward accepting the seventh-day
Sabbath. Historically, Ethiopia, and many other parts of black Africa
have been bastions of Sabbatarianism. Their isolation, for centuries,
from the corrupting influence of Rome has allowed Africans to
maintain much spiritual independence. Today, Christianity in general,
and Sabbath-keeping in particular, is exploding in sub-Saharan
Africa6.
In line with those sentiments is the Davidian scripture which reads
that Ethiopian shall stretch forth their hands and take hold of the
true sabbath7.
Bradford continues
to state that “Ethiopia (Abyssinia) is a nation defined throughout
its existence by its fidelity to the seventh-day Sabbath. Today, the
numbers of Sabbath-keepers are exploding in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya,
Gabon, Congo, and elsewhere. Why? Because of the work of missionaries
in the 1800s? No! The Sabbath is thriving in Africa because the
Sabbath roots of Africa run deep, both in Scripture, and historical
practice”.
In Psalm 68, the Pentecost Psalm, we
read, "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon
stretch out her hands unto God," verse 31. And, she has, and is,
responding to the Almighty. "When Israel was a child, then I
loved him, and called My son out of Egypt," Hosea 11: 1. "From
beyond the rivers of Ethiopia My suppliants, even the daughter of my
dispersed, shall bring Mine offering," Zephaniah 3: 10.
(Zephaniah may have been of African descent, because he was the son
of Cushi, a code name for a descendant of Cush, son of Ham.) "Also
the sons of the stranger . . . every one that keepeth the Sabbath
from polluting it, and taketh hold of My covenant; Even them will I
bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of
prayer," Isaiah 56:6-7.
Egypt figures prominently in the plan
and purpose of God, Isaiah 19:24-25. Ethiopia and Egypt are
representative of the entire African continent. For the Ashanti
(Akan) of Ghana, Saturday has been the traditional holy day, a day of
worship of God. Among the Yorubas of Nigeria, the seventh day of the
week has been a day when no work, no marriage, no festivities, should
be performed8.
There is no record at any time in the history of the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church that they have officially given up the Sabbath.
Another group of Ethiopians, the Falasha, or "Black Jews,"
hold to a form of Judaism that was dominant in Solomon's days.
What is the origin of the races? While
some aspects may be shrouded in mystery, Bradford argues for a
monogenetic (single source, single place) origin of mankind and the
races, in Africa. Assyria in Mesopotamia, understood to be a
northeast extension of Africa, is called in the Bible, "the Land
of Nimrod [son of Cush]," Micah 5:6. In the "Table of
Nations" of Genesis 10, Ham's progeny are given more space than
any of the other sons of Noah. Of Ham's four sons, Mizraim went to
Egypt, Cush to Ethiopia, Phut to Libya, and Canaan to Palestine9.
Whatever the origin of the racial differences of mankind, Bradford
argues for their common origin, and common access to Yahweh's
covenant, Genesis 9:8-19. The Sabbath is the great common denominator
of that covenant. No one is excluded. "Blessed be Egypt My
people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine
inheritance," Isaiah 19:25.
Millerite leaders were staunch
abolitionists; indeed the cause in the United States is said to have
begun in Joshua Himes’ Chardon Street Chapel. The doctrine of the
second advent was seen as the fountainhead of all reforms, and the
appearance of Jesus became the ultimate answer to the vexing problem
of the peculiar institution of chattel slavery10.
One young Millerite named Ellen Harmon received her first vision
shortly after the disappointment of 1844. While relating it to
an audience on one occasion, a black Millerite minister named William
Foy exclaimed that he had been shown the same thing11.
Indeed, from 1842 to 1844 the teenaged
Ellen Harmon and her family attended Foy’s lectures in their
hometown of Portland, Maine, Ellen in fact sitting next to Anna Foy,
William’s wife. Years later Ellen White confirmed Foy’s
brief prophetic career, saying it “was remarkable testimonies he
bore12,”
and saying that she possesed the pamphlet of his visions.
White’s debts to Foy have been an unacknowledged and unremarked
upon aspect of her eventful life.
The fascinating information about the
history of the Church of Ethiopia, the Queen of Sheba was from
Ethiopia, and bore a son from King Solomon. Falashas continued the
Old Testament religion. In Acts 8: 26-40, we are given the account of
the introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia, with the conversion of
the Ethiopian treasurer (eunuch) by Philip. The treasurer returned to
Candace's court, and as a result, Ethiopia became the first Christian
nation. The influence of Ethiopia on the rest of Africa was enormous.
Ethiopia has been the model nation of Africa for 2,000 or more years.
The Bible uses the name, Ethiopia, to mean all of sub-Sahara Africa13.
Kibble states that at the same time when
Africa was christian “...the forefathers of the Caucasian race were
still pagans, Ethiopia was Christian, and, for those times, a
civilized nation. When the peoples of northern Europe were running
wild over the plains, and natives of the British Isles were
discoloring thei bodies and worshipping heathen gods, Ethiopia's
peoples were worshiping the God of heaven ”14.
Islam arose 600 years after Christ due
to the failure of western European Christiandom to live up to, and
spread, the true Gospel message. Muhammad and his cohorts sought to
reclaim the faith of Abraham, which Europeans had abandoned. Islam
nearly defeated Europe, and severely endangered Ethiopia. Yet when
Islam swept North Africa and the Middle East, Moslems created a
shield for Africa from the corrupting influence of the Roman Church.
The Ethiopian Church continued independent for centuries, until at
last the Jesuits encroached under the guise of helping Ethiopia
resist Moslem invaders15.
The battle between Islam and Sabbath-keepers continues today in
Nigeria, where the northern part of the country and the central
government are dominated by Moslems, and the eastern and southern
portions are predominately Christian.
The sabbath is native to the African far
more than any other religious ordinance that the white man can claim.
The African therefore is obliged to observe the sabbath as his day of
rest and devine worship because of its roots. The world has
marginilised the African religions as being an animistic and full of
demonic manifestation, but however one might consider that it is the
Sabbath day as kept in Eden that will restore the Africaness to the
African.
1
Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her
hands unto God.
(Psa
68:31 KJV)
3O
God, thou art terrible out of
thy holy places: the God of Israel is
he that giveth strength and power unto
his
people. Blessed be
God. (Psa 68:35 KJV) (Emphasis
mine)
4H.W.
Kibble (1941)Shall We Keep the Lord's Day? The Message
Magazine, May, 4.
5White
E G (1911) The Great Controversy, Pacifc Press, Washington
DC.
6
Charles E. Bradford (1999). Sabbath Roots: The African
Connection, Ministerial Association of the General
Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
7Princes
shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands
unto God.
(Psa
68:31 KJV)
9
Sabbath Roots by Charles E. Bradford
10http://www.blacksda.org
11White
J(1850) Word to the little flock
12White
E G (1915)Life Sketches of Ellen G Whites
13
Richard C. Nickels sabbath in Africa,retrieved from
http://www.giveshare.org/
churchhistory
14H.W.
Kibble, “Shall We Keep the Lord‟s Day?” The Message Magazine,
May 1941, 4.
15
Michael Geddes(1997)The Church History of Ethiopia,THE AGES
DIGITAL LIBRARY ,Version 1.0 © 1997