A Christian Review of "HOW TO MAKE A NEGRO CHRISTIAN: A Reprinting of The Religious Instruction of the Negroes by Dr. Reverend Charles Colcock Jones" with Commentary by Kamau Makesi-Tehuti

 A Christian Review of "HOW TO MAKE A NEGRO CHRISTIAN: A Reprinting of The Religious Instruction of the Negroes by Dr. Reverend Charles Colcock Jones" with Commentary by Kamau Makesi-Tehuti

This book is not for the faint-hearted. It is a painful but necessary primary document for understanding what must be decolonized in African Christianity.

1. What the Book Is

The core of the book is an 1842 manual by Charles Colcock Jones, a white Presbyterian minister and slave-owner in Georgia, USA, titled The Religious Instruction of the Negroes. Jones was known as the "Apostle to the Negro Slaves." His stated goal was to evangelize slaves. His method was to create a slave Christianity.

His theology was deliberate:

- Emphasize Ephesians 6:5 - "Slaves, obey your earthly masters" while suppressing Exodus, Galatians 3:28 - "there is neither slave nor free", and Luke 4:18 - "proclaim freedom for the prisoners".

- Teach that obedience in this life will be rewarded in heaven, but disobedience and rebellion is sin against God.

- Remove literacy and theological agency. The slave should hear the Word, not read it for himself.

The modern commentary by Kamau Makesi-Tehuti argues that this was not evangelism but social control - making Christianity a tool of docility. He is historically correct.

2. A Christian Theological Critique

From a biblical perspective, Jones' project was heresy, not Christianity.

a) It violated the Imago Dei: Genesis 1:27 says all people are made in God's image. To teach that one image-bearer was created by God to own another image-bearer is a denial of creation theology. The same Bible Jones used to demand submission says in 1 Timothy 1:10 that enslavers are lawless.

b) It violated the Gospel: The true Gospel is liberation. The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-39 shows African Christianity existed before European colonialism. The Gospel arrived in Africa in the 1st century through Mark in Alexandria. Africa did not need Europe to bring Christ. Europe brought a distorted, domesticated Christ to serve empire.

c) It created a "plantation Jesus": This is not the Jesus of Revelation 5:9 who by His blood "purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and nation." It is a white Christ made in the image of the slave master - a Jesus who blesses oppression. This is what decolonial theologians call theological coloniality.

3. The Book Through the Lens of Decolonizing African Christian Theology

This book is important for African theology today because it shows us exactly what we must unlearn.

Decolonization is not de-Christianization. It is the separation of the authentic Gospel from colonial culture.

African theologians like Kwame Bediako, John Mbiti, and Mercy Amba Oduyoye have made this clear:

1. Christianity is not a white man's religion. The earliest African theologians - Tertullian, Augustine of Hippo, Athanasius - were Africans. The Bible has always been an African book. Moses' wife was a Cushite, Numbers 12:1.

2. What must be decolonized is hermeneutics. Jones taught slaves to read the Bible through the eyes of the master. Decolonized African theology teaches us to read the Bible through the eyes of the oppressed - like Israel in Exodus. God is on the side of the captive, not the captor. See Exodus 3:7 - "I have indeed seen the misery of my people... I have heard them crying out..."

3. What must be recovered is agency. Colonial missionary Christianity often made Africans recipients, not interpreters. Decolonized theology restores the African as a theological agent who can hear the Holy Spirit, read the text in his own language, and apply it to his own context - of poverty, injustice, and community.

4. Why Every African Christian Should Read It

This book is disturbing, but it is useful for this reason: it shows that the problem was never Jesus. The problem was how men used the name of Jesus to justify evil.

For the young African Christian, this book helps answer a deep question: "Was I converted to Christ or to whiteness?" The answer, in the light of Galatians 3:28 and Revelation 7:9, is that you can be fully African and fully Christian, because Christ did not come to make us European. He came to make us new creations, 2 Corinthians 5:17.

The task today is not to reject the Bible because slave masters misused it. The task is to rescue the Bible from the slave masters and return it to the liberating Christ who said: "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" John 8:36.

Rating: 

Essential as a historical witness, heretical as theology. It should be read not as a manual for faith, but as a warning of how faith can be weaponized when it is divorced from justice, love, and the true Imago Dei.

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