Did / does God Emancipate?

by Oscar Allen 31.JULY.09

God is of course the English/Saxon word/name of God. The French say “Bon Dieu”, the Hebrew people – in the Bible said nothing. The Name was too awesome to utter or even write. Other words were used to speak of some aspect of or experience with the Name. In Arabic culture, Allah is the name, Oludumare is a West African name. Mungo is the Swahili name. Christian equivalents in English – are the Son Jesus Christ, the Father, the Holy Spirit.{{more}}

The question is: Was the ending of Transatlantic slavery the work of God – Oludumare – Mungo, the Name? I have no doubt that the answer is “Yes”. That is my faith and that clarifies but also poses questions for my history and my Christian thinking. The prayer of the 1791 leader of the Haitian slave uprising has come to us as “…the God of the whites leads them to do wickedness, but our God strengthens us for righteousness…” (My paraphrase). He gave his answer to our question plain and straight. Yes, Oludumare liberates and calls us to freedom, but the God of the slave-owners and their accomplices does the opposite. I have noted that same kind of “faith” in the leader of the Habiru underclass, Moses. He is recorded as God’s organizer of the emancipation of an oppressed group in Egypt. In his view too, the God who emancipates has a name and nature different from the God of the oppressive King/ Pharaoh. He asked: “What Name do you give me, what name must I carry for you, God?” He could not consider sharing the same God as those who were committed to brutalizing those he was to lead. God would be fighting against God! Faith led Emancipators need to have this clear vision of God unequivocally at their side, and on their side.

Another question which comes to mind is this: When God emancipates what kind of emancipation does God point to? The answer here is broad, rich and unending Christians often focus on a personal, even an inner emancipation of the soul from doing wrong/sin, narrowing down the meaning of becoming “perfect like the Father” Mt 5. 48. But the personal soul freedom also has an outward relationship as in “loving the neighbor as yourself; “When I was hungry, you gave me breakfast”, using authority and power to “loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the Yoke, set the oppressed free …” (Isaiah 58. 6). But these are just the skimmings of it. Emancipating oppressive and criminal rulers moves from appealing to them to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God” in the words of Micah 6.8. The words of Ezekiel (34.10) go further: “I am against the shepherds/rulers and will hold them accountable for my flock I will remove them”. Emancipation is a power change, but not only at the top, it is moreso or supremely a movement of Jah people who carry an explosive hope for things not yet seen. Vincent Harding, a senior Baptist – Quaker – Black power – Pacifist invites younger students in the U.S to look through the window of the Black freedom movement (in the U.S 1960s/70s) and discover a religion beyond buildings and institutions that is a profound personal and collective recognition of the oneness of humankind” and discover a sense of connectedness with the cosmos”. A profound people’s movement

Jesus, the Galilean, who sometimes quietly, sometimes explicitly came as God the Emancipator, master and slave, led a movement of surprising faith and contradictory hope among the oppressed people of Palestine. His manifesto was “Good News To Poor People” Luke 4.18, his methodology a villagers led emancipation movement (Mk 3.14), and his legacy/commission, to disciple emancipate all nations” (Mt 28.19). the meaning is clear.

Emancipation is people’s faith movement that is on journey to shape a new heaven and earth – an unending creation. The 1834 partial victory and release of African Caribbean labour from bondage and brutality under the British monarchy was a step along that journey. After 175 years, we today must mobilize new faith from below to release new energy for the road ahead, and I am issuing the call to Caribbean working people to get off the highway and come together on the emancipation track. The Name is always there.