Christian lessons from black history
The Asbury Park Press Online runs an article on a New Jersey church called The Church of Grace and Peace.
"Associate Pastor Anthony Aquilino, who organized the program, said his church has held other Black History Month events in the past, focusing on the civil rights movement and achievements of black Americans. This year, the church focused on the impact the Christian faith had from early slave times through the civil rights movement, he said.
"Many historians, black and white, credit the Christian faith of the slaves as being the single most important factor in unifying and sustaining them as a people," said Aquilino, the church's drama director.
Among the presentations was a re-enactment of an 18th-century slave narrative. Olaudah Equiano, who was captured at age 11 and brought on a slave ship to America, would eventually purchase his freedom. At the age of 44, he wrote his autobiography, which would inspire Frederick Douglass nearly 100 years later.
Equiano, played by Andre Fergus, stood before the congregation and recounted his journey aboard a slave ship. He also talked of his Christian faith, from which he drew strength.
"God tells us the oppressor and the oppressed are both in his hands. And if these are not the poor, the broken, the blind, the captive, the bruised, which our savior speaks of, who are they?" Equiano said."
"Associate Pastor Anthony Aquilino, who organized the program, said his church has held other Black History Month events in the past, focusing on the civil rights movement and achievements of black Americans. This year, the church focused on the impact the Christian faith had from early slave times through the civil rights movement, he said.
"Many historians, black and white, credit the Christian faith of the slaves as being the single most important factor in unifying and sustaining them as a people," said Aquilino, the church's drama director.
Among the presentations was a re-enactment of an 18th-century slave narrative. Olaudah Equiano, who was captured at age 11 and brought on a slave ship to America, would eventually purchase his freedom. At the age of 44, he wrote his autobiography, which would inspire Frederick Douglass nearly 100 years later.
Equiano, played by Andre Fergus, stood before the congregation and recounted his journey aboard a slave ship. He also talked of his Christian faith, from which he drew strength.
"God tells us the oppressor and the oppressed are both in his hands. And if these are not the poor, the broken, the blind, the captive, the bruised, which our savior speaks of, who are they?" Equiano said."
Comments