"Western Religions"

Brother Abdul Halim from Planet Grenada posted a question in my blog entry that was in response to a post he made on his blog. Specifically he asked whether I considered Christianity to be a European religion. It was a good question which I thought deserved it's own blog post.

If I took a stroll down memory lane I will recall the first time a "Dr. Ben" book landed in my lap. The book was the infamous "African Origins of the Major Western Religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam)." That book was true to Dr. Ben form: repetitive and chock full of information and intimidatingly long. But being the somewhat social outcast that I was, finished that book, among many others that summer, in no time at all.

Of course it hadn't quite dawned on me that the title of the book was in fact very misleading. While it did in fact place ancient Khemet in it's proper place as the mother of these religions, it was mistaken to refer to these religions as "Western". Indeed it would be completely wrong to say that Islam is a western religion. It would be equally wrong to refer to Judaism as "western" as well. I do understand that in terms of Judaism, the prevailing face of the religion is that of a European, but that wouldn't make Judaism itself a "Western" religion. Similarly, though Asians make up the largest body of Muslims, it would be incorrect to say that Islam is an "Asian" religion.

This "face of" issue is pretty important when confronting religion in terms of Nationalism and Pan-Africanism and specifically when answering the question posed. I am on record, with supporting data, showing that the "big three" religions are derived in large part from Khemet. The operative word being "derived." I freely admit and allow space for the fact that cultures embrace religions within their own historical and cultural context. So while Allat became Allah and the Ka'aba move from the 'pagan' realm and into the "holy" of the new religion, all the while ending prayers in reference to Amen-Ra, or the great "I am" becomes the Yahweh, as former Haribu declare themselves the chosen people, while building temples based on the temples of Egypt and rebuilding Arks of Covenants, they each formulate their specific religion to address the wants and needs of that group.

The single important thing that the "big three" have in common that is most relevant to this blog enntry is the nationalist element that each co-opting group developed. for Judaism, it became a means of separating out themselves from the people around them, and religiously justifying warfare on other groups (who, no doubt, used their own religions for the same purposes), in order to establish the Jewish nation. Islam was similarly used in such a manner. Christianity which really ought to be referred to as Christendom, was similarly appropriated by the Roman empire and later the rest of Europe. Christianity, outside of Ethiopia and the Middle-East, would be the new organizing and unifying thought behind Europe as Islam would be later among Arabs. Specifically dealing with Mr. Halim's question though, Christianity became Europeanized when did things such as canonizing Latin as the "official" language of the "holy scripture". When it placed Rome at it's center of authority and decided to mess with the texts (an issue Muslims often bring up in criticism of Christianity/Christendom). In essence, under European "tuteledge", Christianity became a European religion. Of course all the splinters that happened with the protestant "reformation" continued to put a European stamp on the religion.

So in essence I consider "lay Christianity" as a European religion in that it centers it's thoughts and ideas from Europe, via the latin. It centralizes Greco-Roman culture and language as it's root (see all the discussion of "Agape") and sees it's foundation at Judaism, itself a derivative of Khemetic religion. In order for Christianity to return to it's true roots it would have to move beyond it's lock into the Judeo-Roman, ideas and return to it's Khemetic roots. But doing so would upset much of what is "common sense" among common Christians such as the demonizing of Egypt, a complete rejection of the Exodus and the complete re-understanding of the Christ figure. Most, but not all Christians are not willing to do this necessary reconfiguration, and their institutions, modeled on European model of Christianity, are also not interested in such changes.

So as a matter of history and of intellectual discussion I can say that Christianity is an African based religion, much as how Dr. Ben. says. But in terms of its current functional practiced state, it is very much a "Western" Europe based religion.

Technorati Tags: Africa, Christianity, critique, Islam, Pan-Africanism, Religion