"alrighty then, when you are done with all your pseudo-intellectual jargon, how about you give me some SPECIFIC examples".
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BATTLING THE SERPENT
Nat Turner, Africanized
Christianity, and a Black Ethos
MAKUNGU M. AKINYELA
Georgia State University

This article posits that the spread of Christianity among enslaved Africans
hastened the development of a common ethnic identity among ethnically
diverse peoples who were the first generations of enslaved Africans on
American shores. The article focuses on this notion of Black religion as a
primary source of the logic of Black resistanUresi1ience and as the spiritual
source for the development of a collective Black consciousness. It is further
argued that resistantlresilience organically developed in the process of the
construction of an authentically African theology as exemplified in the document
that has come to be known as "Nat Turner's confession." The author
assumes that the African-Christian hybrid cosmology seen in the confession
is an example of the worldview of enslaved Africans generally in the
19th century. This Africanized Christianity forms the basis for the common
ethnic identity, with its motivating cultural value (self-determination) and
central organizing theme (resistant/resilience) seen in the ethos of Africans
in America today.
In a previous work (Akinyela, 1996),I argued that self-determination
is a motivating cultural value in the ethos of African descendants in
the United States. I further argued that this motivating cultural
value gives meaning to a central organizing theme of resistant1
resilience. Both of these elements are important to the eventual
transformation over time of various ethnic identities such as
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to
Makungu M. Akinyela, African American Studies, College of Arts and Sciences,
University Plaza, Atlanta, GA 30303-3083; e-mail: aadmma@gsu.edu.
JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES, Vol. 33 No. 3, Janualy 2003 255-280
DOI: 10.1 1771002 193470223863 1
O 2003 Sage Publications
256 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES 1JANUARY 2003
Yoruba, Akan, Igbo, and so forth of Africans newly arrived in slavery
into the national identity of the modern so-called African
American.
I posit in this article that the spread of Christianity among
enslaved Africans hastened the development of a common ethnic
identity among the ethnically diverse peoples who were the first
generations of enslaved Africans on American shores. I will focus
on this notion of Black religion as a primary source of the logic of
Black resistandresilience and as the spiritual source for the development
of a collective Black consciousness. I further argue that
resistandresilience was organically developed in the process of the
development of an authentically African theology as exemplified in
that found in the interview that has come to be known as "Nat
Turner's confession." In this article, I assume that far from being an
aberration, the African-Christian hybrid cosmology seen in the
confession is an example of the worldview of enslaved Africans
generally in the 19th century. This Africanized Christianity forms
the basis, I argue, for the common identity, with its motivating cultural
value (self-determination) and central organizing theme
(resistandresilience) seen in the ethos of Africans in America
today