How Should Christians Engage Kemeticism? | Dr. Vince Bantu

- Hello, everybody. My name is Doctor Vince Bantu, and I will be talking to you today about the topic of Kemeticism, and specifically, in the spirit of Jude 3, how we can engage with the Kemetic community from the position of the word of God in order to answer for the faith that we have. And so when we talk about the Kemetic movement, what we're talking about is a particular religious group that is primarily active in the Black community in the US, but other nations as well, that goes back to the ancient religious life of Egypt.

Now, Egypt is the English name that we are familiar with, of the land, but this community actually uses the original Egyptian name, which is Kemet, so the name Kemet actually is the original name for the land and the nation of Egypt in the Pharaonic times, and actually in the period of early Christianity, when many Egyptians had actually became Christian, the name actually, in Coptic, was Keme. So Keme in Coptic, and Kemet in ancient Egyptian is the different phases of the language, and Coptic is the language that was spoken when many of the Kemetic or Egyptian people became Christians, and that's even an apologetic in and of itself, but we'll get to that. But anyway, when we're talking about Kemeticism, again, we're talking about a movement that is trying to go back to, and bring back, and patronize the deities and religious life of ancient Egypt or Kemet.

Another name you might be familiar with hearing is the Conscious Community, which is also sometimes alternatively called the Kemetic or Conscious Community, and again, what I wanna do in this video is to, in this lecture, is to present just a brief overview of some of their core beliefs, and then also some biblical historical resources that will hopefully aid the body of Christ in representing the faith of Jesus Christ, especially with regard to the Kemetic community. Now, the Kemetic community, actually, in the United States, started actually in the White community, which is also an apologetic in and of itself. In the early 20th century, there were many White people in the United States who were trying to go back, similar kind of way, go back to pray to Egyptian gods, even claim to be the reincarnation of those gods, because in ancient Egyptian religion, gods or goddesses can manifest as human beings, and they kind of go in and out of different modes or modalities of existence.

But this movement, it wasn't really till the '70s when this movement got started in the Black community and there was an Afro-Panamanian man named Ra Un Nefer Amen, and he was born in Panama in 1944, he came to New York city in 1960, and then in 1973, he began the Ausar Auset Society. Now, Ausar and Auset are, kind of like Kemet, these are the traditional Egyptian language terms for the Egyptian gods, Osiris and Isis. You might be more familiar with those terms.

Those come from the Greek language, and Egypt was colonized by the Greeks even from before the time of Christianity and the Ptolemaic dynasty, and so the Greek, the Hellenized names of Egyptian gods are more probably well-known. But one of the biggest values of this particular community is to actually use Egyptian terms and to reject Greek, or English, or Western terms, because like many other religious communities, in the Black community, Hebrew, Israelites, or Black Muslims, Nation of Islam, whatever, Five Percenters, there's a huge emphasis on cultural identity and a desire to distance oneself from Western White terminology, and to embrace African terminology, which is actually, in many ways, a good thing, and actually, it's a wake-up call, really, to the church that we need to also be clearly presenting the gospel in ways that are much more culturally relatable and accessible to Black people. And so there's actually some common ground we can talk about there, I think.

But this particular Kemetic community in the White community was very racist, and actually Ra Un Nefer Amen experienced a lot of marginalization, and so he left that community and started the Ausar Auset Society, the Osiris Isis Society, in 1973, and it was a multicultural fusion of different things. It was open to many people, but it's predominantly Black people, Afro-Caribbeans, African-Americans, Africans, in the US mainly, but also other countries as well, and it's predominantly a Black movement, where the idea is for Black people to go back to and reclaim their Egyptian identity. And Ra Un Nefer Amen actually was very educated in Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so he also fused a lot of those religions in his writings, and I would definitely encourage you to read a lot of his writings that are available to really understand this community's theology.

But there's a strong fusion of different gods, and goddesses, and participants in the various denominations that have emerged since 1973, that alternatively wear the Kemetic or Conscious label, or espouse similar theology. All have this kind of pantheon of gods, largely focusing on Egypt, although others are included as well, and there's a sense in which, again, Black people are descendants from Egypt, and that's the original religion of Black people, and we have to go back to that. And there's also another positive thing.

They have a very strong emphasis on, like, healthy eating, healthy diet. But when it comes to the Kemetic community, and talking about Christianity, I would say that there's really two major claims that are often made that believers, that we have to be prepared to really engage with. when we're representing the Bisrat.

Now, Bisrat is a Ethiopian term that means gospel, and again, it's an apologetic even in and of itself that I'm sharing and introducing various African Christian terms, because we know that in Christ Jesus, that all of our languages and cultures are embraced, and so it's fine to use Western terms, but it's also, I think, good and needed to use African terms as well. And so when it comes to representing the Bisrat and engaging the Kemetic community, I would say there's two major claims. One is that the Bisrat, the gospel, is a message, and Christianity is a religion that was started by the White man that it's a White man's religion, that at its core, Christianity is an oppressive, Western, White religion.

And the second major claim is that Christianity is a copy of Kemetic religion and Kemetic mythology, and so the idea is that Christianity, especially the story around Jesus and Mary, but even, like, the Ten Commandments, that all of these things were just copies from Egypt, 'cause Moses and the Israelites were in Egypt, and the Hebrews came out of Egypt, so everything's a copy from Egypt. That's one of the main claims. Now, already, those are actually kind of contradictory claims that they will usually make, because, again, if Kemetic religion and mythology is African, and it's from Egypt, and it's Black, and if Christianity was copying off of it, then that would make Christianity Black too, because it's copying off of a Black religion.

If the idea is that White people came and copied off of, and created, according to them, created a story about Jesus copying off of African religion, then that would make it actually have its source in African religion. So it's honestly a poor argument, and contradictory arguments to be made, but they are still false claims that the enemy is using to circulate in our community, and with which we have to do spiritual warfare. And so there's a few points that I wanna make in this video, in this video lecture, that hopefully will be helpful in engaging these concepts, and some central points here.

Number one, the Bisrat, properly preached and practiced, the gospel, is a message that embraces all cultures, and does not favor any one of them over the other, but all people are embraced in the Bisrat, in the gospel. Number two, the Bisrat, the gospel, and Kemetic or Egyptian mythology, they actually have little in common with each other, and so there's this idea that, oh, Christianity is just copying off of Egypt, but they actually have very little in common with each other. Number three, the Kemetic Urpeh, and Urpeh is actually an Egyptian word that means the church, and it's actually interesting, because that's an Egyptian word, so it's good to teach these people about Egyptian history.

I'm trying to share with you so you can teach them about their own alleged history. But Urpeh is actually an Egyptian word that literally means, like ur, it means to do, or to activate, or perform, and peh means heaven, so it literally means to do or practice heaven. and it's a beautiful concept, actually, a beautiful word for church, 'cause church is just a Germanic word, kirka, and so you can use church, but also, you can use Urpeh as well, because we shouldn't all be beholden to.

. . we shouldn't all be emphasizing the eye all the time, because the eye can't say to the hand, "I don't need you.

" And so we all need. . .

Every part of the body needs to be influenced and embraced to represent the same Bisrat message. And so anyway, I also think it's interesting that the Urpeh, the word Urpeh, was actually the word for the temple in Egypt, like the temples of Isis, or Horus, Heru, these were called the Urpeh, and so when Kemetic or Egyptian people became Christians, they actually sometimes would even call the church the Urpeh, and so they're using this term that, just like the word church, has a pre-Christian, pagan background, but then when Europeans became Christian, they started calling the church. .

. that's what they would use to refer to the Ecclesia, is the church. And so in a similar way, in Egypt, in Kemet, the believers called it the Urpeh, and even would sometimes literally transform ancient temples that were used to worship Isis and Horus, and they would change them into churches.

And we see the most famous example right there in this picture, the temple of Philae, where a cross was superimposed on top of traditional religious iconography. And again, just another apologetic tip is like. .

. Look, I'm a believer, I believe in Jesus, I believe Jesus the only way, I believe the Bible is the word of God, but I do think that we, as believers, when we're doing apologetics and evangelism, we also need to show respect, and so I think it's important to, when we're referring to different communities, like, for example, the Kemetic community, they very much are offended when we use English terms or Greek terms, like Egypt, or Isis, so I try to say Kemet to be respectful. And in the same way, even though I do believe that these religious claims are falsehoods from the enemy and that keep one separated from God through Christ, I don't think it's really necessary and it's disrespectful to call it, like, a cult or use words like pagan.

That's just not respectful. And so I say this was traditional religious belief system that was covered up by Egyptians, by Kemetic people themselves, when they put their faith in Jesus Christ, but at the same time they found ways to contextualize. And that's part of the last point I wanna make is that it was actually during the Christian period of Kemet, or Egypt, when most Kemetic people were in the Urpeh, the church, that they actually resisted White colonial rule more than the Kemetic traditionalists did.

Again, I don't wanna say pagan, but I'm gonna say the Kemetic traditionalists, the people who prayed to Isis, and Horus, and all that, they actually did a better job. And I'm gonna explain these points and offer some resources right now. Now, first point, again, the Bisrat embraces all cultures and favors none.

This is something that, honestly, we need to do better as a church to really teach better, because we have to understand that a large part of why people see Christianity as a White man's religion is because it's often been presented that way. How many pictures of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus have we all seen? And so we know that that's not historically accurate, and it's theologically heretical, I would say, and it's psychologically traumatizing, to always have a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus, but that is unfortunately normal for many of us to see, and so people.

. . That's just one example, we go down the list, but there are so many ways in which the church has been presented in a very Eurocentric way, and so it's understandable, though it's false, it's a false thing, it's understandable why people think that.

But when we go to the Sharjah, the word of God, that's an Egyptian word, actually, that Egyptian Christians used, that Kemetic Christians used, when we look at the Sharjah, the Bible, it shows us that the Bisrat, the gospel, is for all people, that God's message of salvation through Jesus Christ is for all people. In the Old Testament, God told Abraham that "All people will be blessed to you. " Isaiah, told Israel that "It's too light a thing for you to be My people," and said, "I will make you a light to the nations so that My salvation will reach to the ends of the earth.

" So there's always been, even in the Old Testament, a vision of God creating a covenant people of Israel to bring His message of salvation to the entire world so that everyone would be incorporated. And we see that come to fruition in the New Testament, in Acts 10, with Cornelius, who was the first non-Hebrew, Gentile believer, and Peter realizes, oh, God doesn't show favoritism, but He accepts everybody. See, Peter thought salvation was only gonna be for the Hebrew people, and God had to give him a celestial vision, and said, "Kill and eat," and He said, "Don't call anything unclean that I have made clean.

" And then in Acts 15, the question becomes, "Well, do Gentiles who are saved, do they have to be like Jewish people? Do they have to get circumcised and do all the temple stuff that we do? " And the Holy Spirit led the council into realizing, no, they don't have to be.

. . They don't have to act like Jews, they're Gentiles.

They're Greeks, they're Egyptians, they're Persians, they're Indians. The gospel was going in every direction. In Acts 2 it says, "Every tribe, nation, and tongue was filled with the Holy Spirit, and they went out from there and they shared the Bisrat, the gospel, in every.

. . " God, in His providence, chose the Hebrew people who were dispersed in almost every nation in the world from India, to Spain, to Ethiopia, to Scythia, they were everywhere, and they went and shared the Bisrat with their non-Hebrew, non-Jewish kinfolk.

And so the gospel went out from everywhere from the beginning, and Acts 15 shows us that, no, you don't all have to act like Hebrews, but you stay in your own culture. And so, again, in Revelation 7:9, we see that cultural linguistic distinction is something that's gonna follow us into eternity. John looked up in heaven and saw every nation tribe and tongue.

He heard people saying Sharjah, and Urpeh, and Bisrat. He heard Egyptian, he heard Ethiopian, he heard Yoruba, he heard Akan, he heard patois, he heard African-American vernacular and Ebonics, he heard Spanish, Chinese, Korean. Every single culture is all united in worship of the Risen Lamb, Jesus Christ.

And so Christianity does not have any one culture, and it's unique in that way, because most cultures are usually associated with one culture, like Judaism is associated with Hebrew, Jewish people, Israelis, Hinduism is associated with Indian people, Shinto is associated with Japanese people, Islam is associated with Arabic-speaking, Middle Eastern people, but Christianity is not associated with any one culture, So it's not any man's. . .

It's not a White man's religion, and it's not any person's religion, it's for all people, and when we come to God by faith in Jesus Christ, we still stay who we are. We still stay Chinese, Black, White, French, Jamaican, Mexican, whatever. We still stay who we are, because those things are all made in the image of God.

And so that is the Bisrat truly practiced, and so it embraces all cultures, and it doesn't belong to any one person. The second point, we have to be able to respond to this claim that, oh, everything y'all read in your Bible is just a copy from Egyptian religion. Well, let's look at that, because a lot of times, people in this community, they'll be basing their faith and theology off of a YouTube video they watched, or off of some blog that has no actual research and actual engagement with primary texts.

But when we look at the primary texts, and I've just named a few right here, like "The Hymn to Osiris", "The Contendings of Horus and Seth", the (indistinct). These are some of the pivotal Egyptian ancient Pharaonic texts that talk about Horus and Isis, because that's usually the point where they go when they say everything you're believing in is all a copy from Egypt. Well, let's look at that.

When we look at these texts, we read the stories, and we actually see, and I'm just kinda summarizing, but again, you can go read these texts for yourself, because, again, most Kemetic people don't even really read them, honestly, which is part of the problem. They have these beliefs, they don't even read their own holy texts. But when you read them, you see that, actually, Osar, or Osiris, he actually committed adultery with Seb's wife, and that's why he was killed, so Seb was his brother, and killed him.

So first of all, they believe in a god that can be killed, and also who commits adultery. We believe in a God who is perfect, who is not like a human that He should sin, and also is eternal, was, is, and is to come. Big difference already, off the bat.

Auset, his wife, then reassembled his body that Seb had cut up, but she wasn't able to locate his penis, and so she hovered over his body, and then the text says that she drew his semen into herself. That is nothing like the immaculate conception of Mary, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and also, Mary's not a god, whereas Auset is thought to be a god by Egyptian people. So again nothing like.

. . But they will say Auset was conceived by the Holy Spirit, just like Mary was.

But again, that's not at all what happened, as we see. Osar, after he was killed, went to become the lord of the underworld, and so we don't believe in a god. .

. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, doesn't go live in hell and reign in hell. That's actually where the devil is punished.

And so big difference there. Heru, or Horus, was born in a swamp. Sometimes you read websites that are unsubstantiated saying things like, oh, Horus was born in a manger, just like Jesus was, No, he wasn't, he was born in a swamp.

And they will say that Horus was crucified just like Jesus was. No, he wasn't, he didn't die at all, and he was certainly not crucified, nailed to a cross, but his uncle, Seb, attempted to assassinate him by sending a scorpion to bite him and poison him, but he didn't die, 'cause Auset prayed for him, prayed to Ra, Amun-Ra, who's the great god, which, by the way, that's a difference, too, because you're saying Heru is god, and Auset and Ausar are god, but they have a god that they report to who is god over them, and can either take away or give them their power. But Jesus has all authority, Jesus is God.

"Before Abraham was, I am. " Christians don't believe that Jesus is like a lesser God than God the Father, and so that's another major difference right there. But also, the stories were not at all the same thing.

And then also Ra then declared that Seb and Heru had to compete in a fight together to rule Egypt, and Auset deceived Seb, and then Heru was able to rule Egypt. And that even is a difference in and of itself, is that the end goal in Egyptian religion is all about who rules Egypt, and Heru's main goal was to become the ruler of Egypt and overthrow Seb. But again, that's totally different, because Jesus's main goal in coming to earth, taking on flesh, dying on the cross, and rising again, was to make humanity, not just Egypt, and also not to be a political ruler of one nation, but his goal was to make humanity, all of humanity, right again with God, through faith in Jesus Christ, and by atoning and by taking on and bearing the sin of humanity.

That's not at all what Horus's goal was. So again, even just from a quick glance. .

. But go read those texts, some of those primary texts and many other ancient Egyptian texts, and you'll see that there's very little in common. In fact, they have more in common, ancient Egyptian mythologies have more in common, with, like, Babylonian and Sumerian religion than they do with Christianity.

And that's why Christians are being persecuted left and right, because unlike most religions who were polytheistic and had no problems syncretizing and fusing other gods together, Christians were saying, "No, we worship nobody but Jesus. " So even just the strict monotheism of Christianity in and of itself, is a very vast distinction in the ancient religious context, and makes it very distinct from Egypt, and far from a copy. The last point I wanna make is that not only was Christianity not a copy of Egyptian religion, Kemetic religion, but actually, when Kemetic people became believers, they actually resisted White supremacy and White colonial rule even better than the traditionalists did.

And I'm saying traditionalists instead of pagan 'cause again, I wanna be respectful, but the traditionalists, and what I mean by that are Kemetic people who worship and believe in Ausar Auset, Heru and all that, the traditionalists, when they became conquered by the Ptolemies in the 4th century BC, they began to just fuse Greek gods with their own. In fact there's nothing more, there's a picture of it right there with Serapis, the Greek God, there's nothing more like vividly narrates or depicts the punkin' that was going on. Like, the Roman empire shoulda came in and Deboed Egypt and said, "You belong to us now, 'cause we want your grain supply.

Europeans been calling us and asking for the resources since day one, and still are," came in, colonized them, but they said, "You can still pray to your little Egyptian gods, like Isis, but we're gonna put Serapis, we're gonna remove Osiris, who is her husband, and we're gonna put our Greek god. " So literally, their male god comes in and moves away the male god of Egypt, and takes the wife of Egypt. That is a symbol for how the Greeks came in and colonized Egypt, and the Egyptians just went right along with it.

They prayed to Serapis, and they prayed to Isis, and that's why they weren't persecuted. Think about it. Romans did not persecute Egyptians until they became Christian.

Just think about that in and of itself. Egyptians were worshiping Egyptian gods and Greek and Roman gods, 'cause Romans didn't have a problem if you pray, if you believe in other gods, you just have to pray to our gods, too. You have to pray to Hercules, and Serapis, and all these other Roman gods, but you could pray to yours, too.

So that's what Egyptians did. That's what Syrians, and North Africans, and Carthage, all the people that Rome conquered, they would allow them to fuse their gods together, as long as they worshiped the Roman gods too. Christians were unique in the fact that they say, "No, we don't worship anybody except Jesus.

We're not worshiping any of these gods. " And here's the other thing. Going forward, when the Roman Empire tried to call itself a Christian empire, and go throughout making Rome great again, and trying to take Christianity and make it its own thing, mechanism of oppression, here's the other thing that they don't talk about, though, that, yes, Constantine and other Roman emperors did that, but here's the other thing, is that soon after, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, there was a schism between the Roman church and the churches of Egypt, and Syria and Arabia, basically, the churches of Africa, and the Middle East, and Asia.

They became split, and it was over a issue of Christology. The Roman church in Chalcedon said, "Jesus is. .

. The way we talk about His humanity and divinity is that He's one person with two natures. " Now, that made sense in their Hellenistic mindset, but in Egypt, in particular, who were one of the main people that resisted this, that didn't make sense.

To them, that sounded like the Council was saying that there's two different Jesuses. So they said, "No, Jesus has one nature, but His nature is fully God and fully human. " And so you will still see Western Christians, even Protestants, rejecting the ancient church of Egypt, saying it's not really Christian, and they haven't even read their own Coptic texts.

But here's an example right here. Just look at this excerpt from the life of Daniel. This was written in the Egyptian language.

And Daniel was an Egyptian monk who resisted the Roman empire. The Roman church, who was the dominant church, had the Roman Empire and soldiers backing them up, and the Egyptian church was persecuted. So this was Christian, so-called Christian, on Christian violence that was going on for 200 years.

It says here, "And at the time the impious Justinian became emperor, he who has polluted and terrorized the entire world and the Catholic church in every place, he endeavored to enforce the cursed faith of the defiled Council of Chalcedon everywhere, and scatter the beautiful flocks of Christ. He chased the Orthodox bishops and archbishops from their thrones. And the impious Justinian was not satisfied with this, but he also disseminated the impious tome of Leo.

" Leo was the Roman Pope that. . .

You have the Western church and the Western government working together, and he wrote a tome or a letter saying Jesus is one person and two natures, and the Egyptians weren't down with that. It says, "the Tome of Leo, which the impious Council of Chalcedon had accepted, he propagated it everywhere that lay under his control in order to make everyone subscribe to it. But when it was brought to Egypt", notice the way that Egypt is being contrasted in this text with the oppressive Roman empire and their oppressive theology that they were trying to impose on the Egyptian church, it says, "when it was brought to Egypt, a great disturbance occurred among all the Orthodox faithful.

" Notice how they're calling Egyptians Orthodox faithful, and they're calling the Romans the impious, polluted people. "A great disturbance occurred among all the Orthodox faithful who were in the land of Egypt, and it was brought to the holy mountain of Scetis in order that our holy fathers might subscribe to it. " Now, the text goes on and shows that Daniel comes out and he tears up the tome and he says, "We don't want your theology," because they had their own Egyptian theology.

So, again, why am I pointing this out? I'm saying that if you look at Egyptian church history, you will see that they became ostracized and oppressed by the Roman church, Christian on Christian oppression and violence, and when the Roman Empire was attempting to colonize, theologically colonize, and make the Egyptian church subscribe to their particular theology, that really didn't make sense, and didn't seem Orthodox or (speaks foreign word), to use a Ethiopian term, to the Egyptian church or the Kemetic Urpeh, they resisted it. Now, what did the traditionalists do when the Romans came in and told them, "You better pray to Serapis"?

They went ahead and did it. They let themselves get punked, they let themselves get Deboed. But when the Egyptians were believers in Christ Jesus, notice that not only they had already had a long history of rejecting Egyptian paganism, but they also said, "We're not gonna accept your particular theology, 'cause we already have our own.

" They kept it real, not only for the Bisrat, the gospel, but they even kept it real for their Egyptian identity, and said, "We don't need to get this European church. We have our own beautiful church tradition. There's already an African vibrant church tradition, and we don't need to be imposed upon by your European church tradition.

" And we're still dealing with that today. But that is a contradistinction between the same Egyptian people when they had faith in Christ, that it took them deeper in their ethnic identity, and it took them deeper into pride of their own Egyptian theology, that they don't need to be imposed upon from a European one. And that's another way that we have to communicate the Bisrat more holistically, that again, being a (speaks foreign word) or a Christian that's the Ethiopian word, does not take you away from your cultural identity, it actually completes it.

That's what Paul says. He says a Jew is not only one who is one outwardly. So that's another way of him saying that, "I'm actually a true Jew," Paul was saying, "'cause I'm completed in Christ.

" So being a Christian doesn't make you less Black or less African. It actually makes you more Black and more African, 'cause God is the one who created Black. And it's the same thing for everybody, 'cause it's not just for Black folks.

Chinese, Korean, Nigerian, French, whatever, when we come into faith in Christ, we become completed, because He made us in His diversity. And so these are just some resources that I hope are helpful as you represent the Bisrat, or the gospel, with our Kemetic fellow image-bearers and neighbors in our community. Thank you, and God bless.