Abstract
The combined use of evangelical and African rhetoric on the part of Turner and others like him indicated that the two were not dichotomous propositions; one informed the other without bright lines of distinction. On the one hand, the rhetoric of evangelicalism necessitated the conversion of those outside the Christian ark of safety, ensuring that the newly converted became the children of God. On the other hand, the rhetoric of heathenism posited Africans, the alleged descendants of Ham, as not God’s people; the only way that they could become God’s people was by succumbing to the civilizing dictates of Christianity. The evangelists, full of vim and vigor for the gospel message encountered the heathen, worshippers of rocks, stones, dead ancestors, and gods and goddesses that were not the one true God. Their failure to acknowledge and worship the one true God led to the devolution of the African into an uncivilized, uncultured amalgam of disparate religious practices. In the minds of individuals like Turner and other missionaries of the AMEC, the only way the Africans could be saved from the morass of heathenism was by accepting Jesus as savior. This salvation, in turn, would lead to civilization.
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Notes
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© 2014 A. Nevell Owens
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Owens, A.N. (2014). We Have Been Believers: Revisiting AMEC Rhetoric of Evangelical Christianity. In: Formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Nineteenth Century. Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342379_5
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