Black/AA Spiritualist Churches and Temples

[IllmaticDelta]

Religion and Beliefs are completely different

You can say black Christians have different religion practices than Asians for example but core beliefs should be the same

God don’t care how people worship him if they get on their knees quiet or run around in a circle hollering. Everyone is different. It’s not even a race thing at the end of the day although it is important factor in why people believe in God or Jesus, Islam etc..... or not.

That's true to an extent

I saw the video you posted. These church differences are more so for studies on religion & culture, and overall history of blacks in USA of that time. However, some people think that is “ Black Christianity” the same way there was “Black Moslems and the NOI.

again, it's all about interpretation

Spoiler

African American intellectuals have long devoted attention to the testimonies of slaves, particularly the many former slaves interviewed after the Civil War. Emerson B. Powery and Rodney S. Sadler Jr. turn to the interpretations developed among freed slaves before the Civil War. They ask how the Bible, used so powerfully by the advocates of slavery, became a source of liberation for African Americans. Powery and Sadler credit these early black interpreters with creative and critical interpretation, grounded in their experience of a liberating God who would not authorize dehumanization. This work required them to reject the interpretations that flourished in white society – interpretations whites attempted to impose upon slaves. If some passages of the New Testament sanctioned slavery, the former slave and popular preacher James Pennington argued, its “general tenor and scope” would not allow for slavery. Former slaves made much of relatively obscure passages (“Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God” [Psalm 68:31]) and made symbolic identifications with others (“a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” [Isaiah 53:3]). Whites claimed that Noah’s curse against Canaan (“a servant of servants shall he be” (Genesis 9:25) legitimated slavery, but blacks countered with the tradition that all humans were of one blood (Acts 17:26). One former slave argued that because the first human had been created out of the soil (Genesis 2:7), Adam had dark skin. Whiteness, said William Anderson, was a symptom of a skin disease as in 2 Kings 5:27 – a consequence of sin! African Americans even found ways to befriend Paul, identifying with the apostle’s own experiences of unjust suffering.

HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media

 

[DoubleClutch]

The way I see it,

Slavery wouldn’t have existed and lasted as long as it did in USA if Whites didn’t justify it using the Bible and Religion

Blacks wouldn’t have survived and endured 400 years of slavery and everything they experienced afterward without the Church, Christianity and Jesus to believe in.

For this to happen Jesus had to be depicted as White even though he is not.

That’s just how things work.

In the aftermath of Segregation/Jim Crow we have all these pro black new religious movements that popped up and gained followings only to eventually fizzle out or be exposed.

Somewhere in between all this is the Spiritualist movements.

 

[xoxodede]

The way I see it,

Slavery wouldn’t have existed and lasted as long as it did in USA if Whites didn’t justify it using the Bible and Religion

Blacks wouldn’t have survived and endured 400 years of slavery and everything they experienced afterward without the Church, Christianity and Jesus to believe in.

For this to happen Jesus had to be depicted as White even though he is not.

That’s just how things work.

In the aftermath of Segregation/Jim Crow we have all these pro black new religious movements that popped up and gained followings only to eventually fizzle out or be exposed.

Somewhere in between all this is the Spiritualist movements.

Most of your comment is untrue. I really hope you read some of the book recommendations and vast information online by Scholars to learn more about ADOS and our spiritual practices.

For you to even say "pro-Black" religious groups -- what does that even mean? Who are you speaking about? NOI? Who was exposed? What is pro-Black and how is it different than being just Black and secure and in-love with being Black?

On White Jesus needed - you have a limited view of ADOS history. You also need to learn the dynamic of religion and spiritual practices during slavery - ATR were hidden behind white figures - because they couldn't worship Black anything.

Folk beliefs of the southern Negro : Puckett, Newbell Niles : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The sanctified church : Hurston, Zora Neale : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Slave religion : the "invisible institution" in the Antebellum South : Raboteau, Albert J : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 

[IllmaticDelta]

In the aftermath of Segregation/Jim Crow we have all these pro black new religious movements that popped up and gained followings only to eventually fizzle out or be exposed.

You're talking about the more Black Nationalist types

Somewhere in between all this is the Spiritualist movements.

The Spiritualist ones aren't that far removed from mainline Afram worship; ATR influences are all over them even if no one openly identifies them as such

Spoiler

 

[DoubleClutch]

When I say pro black I’m talking how African Americans and other blacks around the world viewed religion from a different perspective or interpretation. They saw it as a means of uplifting and liberating Black people only and we’re willing to bend their beliefs for religious movements or churches/figures that aligned themselves with that purpose

A good example would be mainly like NOI taught as well any religion group organization influenced by teachings like that of Marcus Garvey and other influential black revolutionary type figures we all know. Then you have the Rastafarian and even Haile Salasie in Ethiopia all similar movements around the time that intertwined ideas with religion and pro black or should I say “anti white” understandably at the time
Many even went as far to incorporate ideas of a new prophets, messiahs and God figures strictly sent for black people and what the problems and issues they were facing in USA and abroad. As if regular “white Jesus” Christianity wasn’t enough or the true black mans religion. It was the hot trend at the moment but of time all that died off for the most part.

My point is that Spiritualist Christianity was in the mix of all this. And people who didn’t know any better view them and the black church as a whole as one in the same. At the time crazy stuff was going on in religion and in the world for black people and obviously that made it somewhat normal.

Just as your parents/grandparents cause they lived through that era. All this is well known.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

First Church of Deliverance

Clarence Henry Cobbs (February 29, 1908 – June 28, 1979) was an African-American spiritualist clergyman and broadcaster, the leader of the First Church of Deliverance in Chicago.

Cobbs founded his own congregation, the First Church of Deliverance. It initially met at his mother's residence, and moved to a storefront at 4155 South State Street in May 1929.[1][2][3] It moved again in 1930, to 4633 South State Street, and to a brick building at 4315 South Wabash Avenue in 1933.[1]

Nicknamed "Preacher", Cobbs became known for his fashionable clothes, informal manner, and stirring performances with the church's 200-member choir.[4] They appeared before large crowds in Comiskey Park, and began broadcasting services on radio station WSBC in 1935. The hour-long "Midnight Broadcast" pioneered a format which was followed by many subsequent religious programs.[1][3]

In 1939, the church moved into a large new building designed by Walter T. Bailey at its Wabash Avenue site,[5] and that same year, composer Kenneth Morris prevailed on Cobbs to install a Hammond organ, giving the choir's music a distinctive sound. Morris recalled,

I wanted nothing else. It sold itself. Reverend Clarence Cobbs was only too happy to get it because it did what he wanted [since] he wanted to use it for gospel purposes. It was the most unusual thing you ever heard. People came from all over just to hear me play that organ.[6]

By the early 1940s, the congregation had over 9,000 members.[2] It affiliated with the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ (MSCC), and after the death of Bishop William F. Taylor in 1945, Cobbs became the head of one of two successor segments, the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Incorporated. This would grow to include 130 churches, including ones in Ghana, Jamaica, and Liberia.[7]

In 1953, the Church of Deliverance became the first black church in the country to televise its services, which were carried on WLS-TV for 12 weeks.[3]

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First Church of Deliverance is a landmark Spiritual church located at 4315 South Wabash Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. First Church of Deliverance was founded by Reverend Clarence H. Cobbs on May 8, 1929.[1] The church began with 9 members and held its first service in the basement of his mother's home located in the Bronzeville area on the south side of Chicago. The church was built in 1939 by Walter T. Bailey, and two towers were added to it in 1946 by Kocher, Buss & DeKlerk. It is a rare example of the Streamline Moderne design being used for a house of worship, and was designated a Chicago Landmark on October 5, 1994.[2]

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Dope shyt @IllmaticDelta

 

[DoubleClutch]

The Spiritualist ones aren't that far removed from mainline Afram worship; ATR influences are all over them even if no one openly identifies them as such

Spoiler

So I finally read this. I agree at its root all true Christianity is more Spiritual or “Spiritualist” than just “Religion” if you wanna label it that to separate it from other denominations

That’s why Pentecostal or Apostolic Christianity believe theyre keeping the traditions practiced at the beginning of Christianity which is during bible times

AzuzA st was just a “revival” in a sense of maybe what was seen as “lost” or not emphasized in the USA Christianity

But the problem (in many other Christians/denominations) is when non black people look at it as being overly spiritual and think it’s something else or even these same Christian churches who use Spiritualist label as a way to allow other non biblical elements from other religions/cultures in

We see this in many religions in countries across the Diaspora and in Africa obviously because they have more of a mixture of African traditions cultures/beliefs and catholic rituals but this same religious syncretism with African Americans Wasn’t the standard or norm.

I think I was more result of the cultural political climate at the time

 

[IllmaticDelta]

 

[xoxodede]

OMG.

Where did you get this from?

 

[IllmaticDelta]

OMG.

Where did you get this from?

Sigler on Baer, 'The Black Spiritual Movement: A Religious Response to Racism' | H-AmRel | H-Net

 

[xoxodede]

Sigler on Baer, 'The Black Spiritual Movement: A Religious Response to Racism' | H-AmRel | H-Net

I have read that book before - I just never saw the logo anywhere. So crazy. Spiritual Israel is still deep in these streets - and still old fashioned and traditional.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

I have read that book before - I just never saw the logo anywhere. So crazy. Spiritual Israel is still deep in these streets - and still old fashioned and traditional.

Oh, you mean the logo? I got it from--->The Spiritual Israel Church & Its Army

 

[xoxodede]

Oh, you mean the logo? I got it from--->The Spiritual Israel Church & Its Army

Everything is on Facebook now.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Everything is on Facebook now.