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all right family hope everyone's doing well hope everyone is doing well i want to give everyone a chance to uh come in on the different platforms that we're on really excited about this conversation uh dr bantu will be joining us in just a few minutes uh so i want to give everyone an opportunity do me a favor and just tag some people if you can do that that would be great if you could uh you know like share uh subscribe uh tag some people type some people in the comments be sure to share this it's

gonna be a great discussion i have with dr bantu as we talk about christianity in africa prior to colonization so it's gonna be a real good discussion um he is getting to a place so he can log on so he'll be on in a few moments but i hope everyone is doing well i look for some of you guys in the comments but yeah help us help us get this out here this can be a very important discussion one of the reasons that led me to want to dive into this particular topic is just several

discussions that i have had uh with people either on one end who pretty much discount um discount northern uh northern african christianity um from africans and so and so that they'll discount in terms of how they're presented in economic and iconography and and on pictures and then also some would even say well northern african christianity doesn't count because they're not banned to speaking and so they will say well show me christianity in africa in in the west western part of the continent of africa and so it's going to be a great discussion with dr band

too so again he uh he's running a little behind but he's going to get on and i'm looking looking forward to this conversation so again just like share subscribe so you can subscribe and so while we'll we'll go through this uh some of these parameters you know follow us on youtube if you haven't already make sure you subscribe to the urban perspective on youtube i greatly appreciate that we can get the subs up there and i can keep uh providing content just from people who have a wealth of knowledge on just various topics just various

topics so again really excited about that but yeah let me know i look for some of you guys in the comments let me know you're on and like i said tag some of your friends whether we're uh on facebook and youtube right now and a couple people were asking about this just being recorded or whatever yeah yo this stream will be saved so uh for people that may um want to catch it later or go back because once we get dr bantu on trust me you're going to want to take copious notes uh you want

to take copious uh want to take copious notes uh once we we get him on so while we're doing that i'll let you know about a couple of my books uh my first book uh renewal uh renewal grace and redemption and the story of ruth that's available uh and then obviously we'll talk today about my second release which is the white washington christianity a hidden past a hurtful present and a hopeful future uh one of the things i'm doing now too want to let you guys know about is uh if you uh if people are

interested in signed copies of this aside copies of either either of these books uh go to my website jeromegatejunior.com we're actually ready for that now several people were asking about that and so i'm really excited about that opportunity let's look here in the comments and see who's here what's going on wavy p newton i see you uh jonathan gans out of texas and of course my man the bk apologist alfredo valentine what's up bro what's up bro uh i probably won't see y'all the next week i'm actually still off social media but i'm doing this

because dr banton already had the schedule i know this is on social but uh i'm not like looking at instagram and all that right now so uh todd give a time what's up man good to see you man good to see you uh looking forward to being back next week at at home at vision uh so yeah michelle i guess you you came back from your hiatus uh so welcome back welcome back to the social media world uh really appreciate this sister listen she's an apologetics biblical exegetical beast uh really love her contribution to the

kingdom and then uh her and shawnee and a host of others but primarily those two young ladies really helped helped us help me with um getting my book out the white watson christianity which which now some of you are asking is now available uh available on kindle now so you got the kindle version that you can get again the kindle version of my book um the white washington christianity which again is available now you can see that's available now if you are interested on wherever books are sold whatever books are sold so wave without the

ban to y'all but listen just hang tight with me hang tight just gonna be a great great discussion with him really good discussion with him um and uh stephen stephen i see you i appreciate that man appreciate that man appreciate you enjoying the teaching i'm i'm a servant that's it just a servant of yeshua and i want to give him glory and honor with uh the gifts that he's he's a place in me for his own glory and so i want to give him back was his who else is here who else here who else

is in the comments penny matthew i think i missed you grace and peace to you as well to everyone in the con in the comments man um stephen t nichols yeah yeah yeah i already did that once yeah he said yeah i appreciate that brother appreciate appreciate those those comments so uh hopefully we get him on soon man i just got off with him and so he was uh trying to get into a good spot so he had some issues uh with his uh rental car and all of that man of course you know something

happened to dale right uh my sister michelle showing love about the white watching christianity again y'all help me help help get this out help get this out help get this out we're answering questions what i wanted to do with this book is i wanted to answer uh the question as to why well how did christianity get whitewashed and why do we not recognize the historical roots of it how did we get that how do we get to this point of associating uh christianity with one particular racial group primarily white people and how we know it's

a global faith of all people but not everyone knows that many people are rejecting it as a result of those issues and so that's one of the things i wanted to tackle in the book and so the response has been amazing it's only been out a little over a month a little over a month and going on to going on to but the response has been great so keep tagging people keep tagging friends and uh friends family uh also obviously people who don't believe who don't agree with us theologically or even in some cases even

though this really shouldn't be negotiable but even historically you know i think it's going to be good as a dr bantu helps us kind of think through african christianity while we're waiting for him as well i want to let you guys know something i'll be a part of but my sister uh my sister lisa fields has a reclaiming christianity in washington dc september 3rd and 4th and so just uh make sure it's called courageous conversations but the theme is reclaiming christianity that's gonna be a great uh great conference so register for that you got a

couple options the in person or virtually um so go to that website i'll put it up here again combos dot o r g that's going to be real good courageous convos dot um dot o r g so yeah but yeah so yeah excited about that jp davis what's up what's up appreciate you appreciate you being on appreciate you guys uh being on again if you have not subscribed do me a favor subscribe to the urban perspective the youtube channel really excited for some as i'm getting back in the swing of things i've been on sabbatical

next week i'm getting back in the swing of things and so excited to continue to provide some new content new and more content for you guys to tackle some of these topics marcus felton i appreciate these comments as well appreciate that i appreciate that brother appreciate that appreciate uh the love you guys are showing appreciate the love you guys are showing so let me check guys see what's going on with dr van too y'all hang tight i literally just got a hold of him before we um before we started this and he was trying to

get to a spot saying he'd be on rather quickly so let me just check in on that uh so prayerfully we get to keep everything we get to keep everything on this uh convo but yeah um so i'll share this too so i've been uh while i've been on break in terms of office social i still have been like listening to tons of discussions from people who don't believe and i just think it's important that we uh we listen we also read from people that we may disagree with because this is one of the ways

that we can grow and uh so a couple of arguments um some of these i hadn't i hadn't heard so passionately and that was that there were no this is this this argument was just crazy um but the brother said there were no deities in africa no deity so he he's rejecting the monotheism uh belief in one god and the polytheism belief in many gods of africa so he said there was no deities it was all principles so they just anthropomorphized um principles and precepts and so that's one of the things we'll kind of broach

this afternoon as well is i i want dr band too to begin to help us think through you know what was spirituality like in africa and uh if you haven't gotten his book gospel hemonote um he addresses that some of the language barriers because uh african christianity was by by many scholars and putting it in quotes was demonized simply because they didn't understand their language and customs and they actually helped us really get orthodoxy and orthopraxy they didn't separate the two uh right belief and right practice those things went hand in hand as it does

in scripture right um otherwise you you're functionally antinomian if if there's no moral compass that is governed by the scriptures and so we get this from uh from african christians and so i want dr bantu to uh dive into that dive into that force and so um so i'm excited about that so let me text you right quick y'all again sorry that we are starting much later than anticipated let me see now see if he can use this phone yeah so that that discussion where the the brother was just dismissing um he wasn't dismissing spirituality

but to say that there were no deities at all in africa uh was just crazy it was just crazy and what i find is a lot of a lot of times not not only is it primarily you know google scholarship they don't have they rarely provide references for the things that they're saying so they're even though they oppose faith they're essentially telling those of us who listen to them to just take my word for it that's something you kind of put in your arsenal as you're if you're engaging people who uh say hey man i

don't i don't have belief uh you know it was just it's just i've been hearing a lot of conversations as it relates to just africa and there's so many uh misconceptions and so much uh just bad info out there y'all and so uh again that's what i'm hoping that we'll we'll be able to dive into today so i'm gonna give him a few more minutes y'all uh thank you all for hanging tight with me um is there any uh i'll let y'all just throw some questions now we're gonna do that for the end but since

we're waiting for him to hop on you put some questions in the comments uh what are some things that maybe we may have if we have some extra time assuming he hops on which i'm hoping that should be soon that uh you would like like addressed uh by dr band too so let me let me see what you got go ahead put some questions in the comments and we uh i may if i have time i already have some set ones obviously uh but yeah if there's some you know we'll be able to be able

to broach uh your questions with dr bantu jonathan gaines said prayers up uh for mr banter and his family appreciate that i'm sure he'll uh sure he'll appreciate that as well i'll let him know i need i need y'all praying for technology right now all right so pray for his technology that uh everything was technology is working because it's it's uh messing up right now and so we can get them on but you have any questions yeah i'll put some questions in the comments and i'll try to if we can get them on i'll wait

a couple more minutes y'all if not we'll uh we'll come at it again we'll come at it again um but yeah he had some issues literally right as we were getting on the live so but i trust god's providence so we have to do it later then we'll we'll just do that uh but he just texted me back and so he's going to try to use his phones hopefully stream yard will work that way uh for him b any any questions you ever want me to ask him as you think about christianian africa prior to

colonization prior to colonization all right so i got okay here we go here we go here we go are you sideways doc can you turn your phone there we go yeah yeah because you were you were sad now you right there now you you're right right there can you hear me hey my brother hey man hey man you you're the man of the hour right now man can you hear me man oh i hear you brother am i coming through yeah yeah we can hear you we can hear you i don't know if you want

to bring your phone it's a whole bunch of head space i don't know if you could yeah but if not i mean it's cool we'll we'll roll with it we we will roll with it yeah but listen y'all i'm glad he's on the people were we're praying we're praying for your technology man we're just like doc we we don't come together and pray and pray uh so we can get it in uh but y'all you know uh you know this man needs no introduction he's been a frequent guest on the urban perspective i'm really excited

to welcome dr vince bantu brother got more degrees than a thermometer got a b.a from wheaton md from gordon conwell with thm from princeton theological seminary m.a from the catholic university of america as well as a phd from the catholic university of america and he's also the author of two books um uh a multitude of all peoples and then one we'll discuss today uh gospel hey my note and so dr bantu welcome to the urban perspective what's up man hey hey pastor gabe man it's good to be here man i'm yeah i'm sorry i'm running

late man uh that had a crazy flight delay but no i understand i'm glad to be here though no problem man thank you so much for being here glad you're here really excited to uh just talk about some of these things i was telling the people as well that you're gonna be a part of the courageous conversations uh conference next month so i'm gonna see you there uh in dc by our sister visionary leader apologist uh lisa fields so really excited about about that but man thank you so much thank you so much i wanna

i wanna dive dive right in um i wanna dive right in um and so you know we both have written books and my latest book uh was called the white washington christianity and so i wanted to find white washing because that's going to help us segue into our conversation and i said this i said you know whitewash christianity refers to the affinity of white christian scholars to dominate the bible christian art literature and history with all people at the expense of authentic ethnicity and true scholarship in order to resonate most deeply with white audiences primarily

based on his experiences presuppositions and world views and one of the reasons i put that in there man is because this says this not only changes the way we view christianity but it also changes the way we view history and how we view entire continents and people in particular we're going to focus and zoom in on on africa and so as we think about that as we think about whitewashing and colonization and and how we begin to look at history through one lens typically a eurocentric lens you addressed this in your book gospel heymano you

said over a century um before the reforms of martin luther and europe and ethiopian monastic figure named estefano started a movement that challenged the dominant ethiopian church and so there's a reason we're not aware of these things so just for those that may not be aware first question is this as we dive in um the first question is i'm sorry that's not the one i want to ask is this is what is colonization what is colonization because that that contributes to the lack of knowledge we have about christianity in africa is because people kind of

took over and in doing so erase culture in history so explain that to us yeah that's a great question pastor gay um i i would probably answer that question in the famous evil words of richard henry pratt who under the authority of the united states government and with support of dominant culture churches in the united states was the leader of one of the most famous indian boarding schools and these were things that happened all over the united states where these were so-called missionaries that would literally kidnap native american children and and bring them into these

schools to evangelize them and to turn them into christians and which for them meant the same thing as turning them into white people and richard henry pratt at the carlisle indian boarding school he had a famous uh phrase where he said we need to kill the indian and save the man and so the idea in that was somewhere under the what they perceived as a savage broken or fallen red skin and and an indigenous uh way of being underneath that is a real human being and we just have to bring him out of there we

have to bring that real human out by making them white and so it you know it goes down to language uh you know uh trying to go into africa indigenous america's aboriginal australians in asia and all other kind of places and saying that they don't need to speak that language you need to speak a european language you don't need to dress the way you dress you need to dress the way europeans do you don't need to have your form of government you need to have our form of government and you don't need to practice your

particular religion you need to protect you need to practice our religion the exactly the way we practice it and economically religiously socially in all forms trying to create come in and militarily dominate a place but then try to recreate that people in another people group's image wow wow and i thank you thank you for for breaking that down because you know we hear that term thrown around a lot you know that we need to decolonize our faith or decolonize our minds and in my book you know addressing whitewashing it's the same thing is we got

to have a decolonized view so that we can see the authentic gospel that embraces all people which is what you address in the in that first book you know multitude of all peoples and so now that you've kind of explained to us some some of the things that was uh as it relates to colonization i want to move on you know to explain some of the mechanics of african spirituality because you mentioned this in your book gospel hemonope is that somebody and we'll talk about language in a second but some of those language barriers caused

them to view uh africans as heretics when they were actually quite orthodox quite faithful to the text more so than the counterparts that criticized them and so uh even beyond just christianity but because some people of the mindset i was telling the viewers earlier that i was listening on a conversation of people who don't believe um and they were saying that their contention was that there was no deity in africa that they were all anthropomorphized principles so can you explain i know it's a big question but this explains some of the mechanics of african spirituality

and then please connect that to african christianity yeah yeah definitely um you know uh and i think i i caught the question pastor gabe but i just want to make sure am i coming in okay because my i think my um my signal will not be might not be great but are you hearing me okay yeah i can hear you the video is a little choppy but i ca i hear you fine oh okay okay um yeah let me uh i wonder if it'd be better if i moved somewhere but um but yeah um you

know uh in my emi because i think uh it's frozen on my end are you hearing me okay pastor gay um yeah yeah i can hear you oh okay okay yeah it just cleared up a mayan too but yeah uh okay yeah thanks for that question um i i i guess i would just say two things um is that you know number one you know i think it's it's very uh it's it's a very false claim to say that africans did not have a concept of a supreme deity that that is exactly contrary to african

spirit african people of various cultures whether it's like antiquity or modern era like ancient egypt uh ancient nubia ancient ethiopia carthage or you know more like you know kind of other cultures as well like akan or yoruba or or zulu or congo that's people can actually read um jacob o lupone's book african religions and it actually does a good job of describing how despite the fact there's a wide amount of variety and diversity of course in african spirituality or african spiritualities and religions that that there are some things that you can point to that are

commonalities uh like ancestor worship um you know the uh and you know pouring of libations and different kinds of things the role of drumming and one the very first thing that old lupona points out in his book on surveying african religions that the commonalities is is the belief in a supreme deity and so african religions across the board believe in the supreme deity the khan people call the supreme deity and jin yame actually means only god that's literally what it means that only god it has a variety of meanings but it means only god is

the highest of all high and uh and there's the supreme deity in europa religion uh there's there so there's definitely a belief in a supreme deity uh and of course deities in african spiritualities right but then we get into the other points you brought up about even african christianity and how even uh various uh kind of ways that african christianity was growing as well was not being embraced or was being ostracized uh by the kind of the dominant christian uh tradition in the roman empire and a lot of that also had to do with language

because i would say another thing about african spirituality that i would say african christians embrace was a holistic view of the world and and understanding that the physical world and the spiritual world is all connected and you know uh european culture western culture it actually tends to want to kind of divide things or or draw very sharp distinctions between things which isn't always a bad thing because sometimes it can help you appreciate the nuance in something but sometimes it can actually go to a place where you see things as wholly disconnected and and and i

would say that this came to a head in a major way during the christological controversies and conversations in the church and that was really the that was the that was the main kind of breaking point between the christian churches of africa and those that were in the european continent of what would later be known as europe and debate the main issue was how to describe the humanity and the divinity of jesus christ and the the roman or the later european perspective was one of kind of drawing sharp distinctions and from an african linguistic mindset to

say that for example jesus has a humanity and a divinity that are distinct from one another that that violated a very african concept of things being holistic in fact the ethiopian church its name actually comes from the belief that that jesus is one and that his humanity and his divinity are one united together and so that was something that that was one of the main kind of um you know breaking points uh as far as how christianity in africa in particular was very rooted in african culture but was um really dismissed and that's part of

the reason as you brought up we don't know about people like estefanos and walata petros and shenuda and and and all these other uh heroes of the faith from the african continent because their particular brand of christianity that was steeped in african culture was rejected as heretical uh when in fact it's not it's just an african expression of the gospel that was unique to that context wow awesome man now that's that's that's so that's so profound because because again if if we're just quick to throw people in the heretic box and to dismiss them to

dismiss aspect of their culture when they were indeed worshiping yahweh who we were you know yahweh in terms of hebrew hebrew dialect then then we we not only um mischaracterize that entire people group but then they try to justify dismissing their contributions and so that contributes to why there is such a lack of knowledge again about african christianity and so that brings us to that next question which you somewhat answered uh but i want you to give just give us some examples so the question is was there christianity in africa before colonization and so i'm

looking at you know so so the arab the arab invasion of primarily northern was around the sixth century and then you know we had the european conquest but what was and i know we can't you know exhaust them but just talk to the people because i think it's so important for you guys and i want you to go back and listen to this because you need this in your arsenal we need to be able to refute the claim that people that that our ancestors in particular african ancestors did not worship christ until 1619 in the

transatlantic slave trade nothing nothing could literally be further from the truth so can you just can you just answer that and give us some examples of christianity in africa before colonization yeah yeah i i would say maybe i'll just give a brief overview and then we'll have more time for you know getting into the weeds of it but i would just say as a brief overview um and you you know get into this wonderfully uh in whitewashing of christianity in the book um but basically uh as you already know and as uh many people may

know that christianity included africans from the very beginning uh i mean of course in the bible right uh that we have uh even in the old testament we have africans such as moses's wife um and ebed melech in the book of jeremiah and then also going into the new testament we have simon cyrini who helped jesus carry the cross and then you have the eunuch who was from nubia uh i mean he's called an ethiopian which is just a greek word for black but he was a eunuch of kandake which means he was from nubia

so you have already one of the first sub-saharan african christians mentioned in the bible was this eunuch who was in charge of the whole treasury of nubia which was one of the most powerful nations in the ancient world and you have basically the second most powerful individual in one of the most powerful nations in the ancient world become a christian become baptized and heard the gospel from the apostle philip and so we have africans all in at pentecost it says egyptians and libyans uh were present in pentecost so so africa was a part of the

the diverse multicultural body of christ from the get-go uh and from from the very beginning but as as is pointed out in the book whitewashing of christianity it didn't stop there but the church continued to grow in africa and you had church fathers and church mothers in egypt and in carthage like tertullian origin athanasius perpetual felicity i'm a syncletica athanasius uh they just yeah the list goes on and on but the thing is is not only did christianity grow in north africa along kind of the the areas of north africa that had become colonized by

the roman empire to my colonization but also the gospel went into sub-saharan africa outside of the roman empire and nubia and ethiopia became christian nations freely in the fourth and then in the fifth centuries uh and so and so basically by the fifth century all not just some but all of the major african kingdoms and civilizations were predominantly christian christianity was the dominant religion in north africa in egypt in nubia and in ethiopia which basically all of those are the primary civilizations of africa in the fifth century in the first five centuries of the common

era so christianity is all over africa and it came in freely and it came in with no colonization in fact at the time of the first few centuries when he was in egypt and north africa and all that the roman empire was actually against christianity they were persecuting christians they were martyring yes and the roman empire you know talking about like greece italy spain that was a dangerous place to be a christian back then in fact it was safer to be a christian in afghanistan and in iran and in iraq because over there in the

persian empire christians were not being persons they were over there too we could talk about have another episode about asian christianity there's a resistance there too but in africa christians were actually in nubian ethiopia in the free parts of africa they were exercising freedom in christ freely but in the roman parts of africa egypt and and roman north africa what we now call tunisia algeria that's where you had some of the most examples of christians being martyred for the faith again perpetual felicity and and and so many north african and egyptian martyrs that died for

the vet and who was killing them it was romans it was roman soldiers so how are we going to say that christian is a white man's religion when in fact uh it was actually the prototype of the of the western white world the roman empire that was trying to stop christianity and persecuting it and it was many times it was africans it was europeans too and asians but it was oftentimes africans who were some of the most famous martyrs who died for the faith uh under people like diocletian and so not only the last thing

i'll say about it but not only that not only did christianity grow in north and in east africa but long before colonization long before the 16th century christianity also began to spread into central and to west africa also freely also without conversation and it was from af one african to another spreading east and spreading south across the continent even long before the portuguese and belgian slave ships showed up on the gold coast christianity was already uh in the gold coast long before that ever happened so it was all over africa hey family put just put

a mic drop put put mics in the comments i need y'all to put just put mics in the comments right now because you just dropped that and that's again this this and one of the things i wanted to address in my book family i want to address my book you can get in every single form you get hardcover paperback kindle or audible if you want to listen is i address why why why why do we associate christianity with one race why do we need to answer this question about it being a white man's religion and

so now dr bantu just gave you a rich history and there's a chapter in my book called hidden heroes and i go over 11 african christians thousands of years before colonization so that we can know about this we need to know this rich history i need y'all keep putting the mice put those mics in the comments i i just want you to see some of this love i just want you to see some of this love dr bantu i just want you to see the love from the from the people but it's so important and

and family remember the reason we do this the reason we do this is because we want to be equipped to go after people who do not share our faith because they are making an eternal decision to reject yeshua based on historical misinformation that has been presented as fact that's why i started off defining whitewashing that's why i wrote my book that's why you need to get this book but also you need to get dr bantu's book uh his book uh gospel heymanite you need to get that as well that's that's an excellent resource and and

family he goes over a lot of this just in his introduction and then there are several other scholars that contribute uh to to to that book now now uh just just as a follow-up on this one dr bantu is one of the arguments that i've heard um and and i don't i'm not gonna go too deep into this but but one of the reasons you know they they we they essentially try to paint northern africa white um and so they'll say well they weren't banned to speaking and so as if only the black africans were

in west africa this is a this is an argument from people with phds who are trying to again justify whitewashing christianity um can you explain why is that and if there can you give us some examples of western uh christianity in western africa just as a follow-up yeah no that's that's a great question because you're right pastor that that's what comes up a lot of the times um now now you know i want to speak to it from it's a complex question so i want to give it a complex answer but hopefully not too complex

in that um there i would say i start off with saying that there is a reason why uh you know there is a there is a valid reason why some people think hold on we lost your audio but we can't hear you you know europe as well okay and the reason for this because that's already as we already talked about um egypt by the time christianity came on the scene and by the time uh these nations be uh you know christians started spreading north africa egypt and north africa were part of the roman empire they

were colonized now they had been colonized just right before christianity actually uh you know alexander the great uh and then later when the the romans took over the greek empire they took egypt then also um uh the the area known as carthage was conquered by the romans after the punic wars and then also mauritania the kingdom of mauritania was conquered by the romans as well so just before christianity came on the scene basically all of the north african coasts had become colonized by the roman empire but these were ancient civilizations that had been around longer

than the roman empire were they had their own languages egyptian uh punic and what what archaeologists called libico punic over the indigenous people today called amaziat or the imazirin and so these already had cultures and languages that then later became colonized and brought into the roman empire um but the as part of being colonized by the roman empire the roman empire just like modern western nations today believed that their culture was superior and wanted to import their culture into these african nations that had already been there and so then you had a mixture of cultures

where you had egyptian and greek or you had punic and latin and you had all these kind of yet the indigenous north african cultures but then you also had um you know kind of roman culture and you had a strong there was a strong sense in which roman culture was better and so and so this is where i have to give a little bit of pushback and uh on a lot of our north african uh church fathers and mothers is that many of them even themselves embraced that idea that roman culture was superior to even

african cultures and so that's why they wrote in greek they wrote in latin and they thought in a very kind of roman kind of way even augustine right he's probably the most famous north african theologian but he was trained in italy by ambrose and he uh read cicero so his thinking was very romanized in terms of his culture now having said that though augustine and tertullian and athanasius and all these people they're still african and they're still they're still north africans and let me say something very clear they were not white they were absolutely not

european people now see the thing is is that they actually framed a lot of western thought that came after exactly exactly medieval uh like renaissance thinkers they're looking back and realizing that they're being influenced by augustine and so they they feel the need to make him white just like archaeologists in the modern world they want to make egypt white because they think well how could such an advanced civilization be people of color and so they couldn't be and so that's the that's how the racism and the white supremacy and the white washing of christianity that

you already go into in the book plays out but i think that's part of why is that that's where i think that's part of why of how it's seen that way in a so the invalid part of that is the fact that again they were not white they were not european they were north african and so they were yeah they were not uh like you said bond two sub-saharan africans but they also were not white or european but they were north africans they were egyptians and north africans that operated from and they had a mixed

culture they had they even augustine to a certain degree retains some of his north african culture a lot of people think through his mother monica which is even imazirin or you know the inaccurate term is berber name and so you know there's still some but then also very romanized now the other the last thing i want to say about that though is this is exactly why pastor gay why i feel that it's so important that we understand the history of sub-saharan african christianity and please don't get me wrong because i think we absolutely have to

know and claim the north african church fathers and mothers as well they're african they're they're african people and they're african theologians absolutely but one of the reasons why i think it's so important that we understand for example the history of nubian christianity and ethiopian christianity and the christianity that spread from there into west africa even we the reason we need to understand that is because um not only because they are bound to sub-saharan african people uh of a darker skin not only that but but also because these were people who were not in the roman

empire but they were in independent african nations and when they did theology they did theology in their own languages and according to their own culture mentalities they weren't they weren't emulating ambrose or cicero but they were actually doing theology it according to their own worship style ethiopian worship uh music the dagua music by saint jared is an indigenous form of african worship and so that's just one example but but again and then also the dersan of of people like georges of sagala and zarya cope these are a style of literature that are unique to the

african ethiopian context and so again uh i it's not to say that um i'll give you i'll close what i'm saying with a modern example that you know today we have you know in our community there are many people who feel that to be a good christian you have to kind of do it the dominant culture way you have to embrace dominant culture theology worship you have to quote those speakers those pastors and that if you do things in a uniquely black way somehow that's not as theologically uh robust or or profound a lot of

times even black people can feel that way and that's that internalized racism right and so i would say that that the north african christians had a little bit of that going on whereas in sub-saharan africa you get a lot more of a black and proud kind of vibe and that's why i think it's so important to know about that but again all of these people are africans and yes they were on like we are today they were in different places and on a different kind of different spectrum of their journey about how to negotiate the

colonization that some of them were experiencing and then also how to how to reject a a whitewashed christianity that we're still dealing with as your book addresses but then also how to really walk uh and follow jesus in their own african skin man hey more mites more mites man yeah i mean you're dropped you're giving us so much wisdom i want to talk about what you talked about one of the things i do address is i i deal with three different responses to whitewashing so i deal with liberation theology um self-hatred uh that's that's called

self-hatred the making of a and then urban apologetics and dr mccauley addressed this in reading while black in terms of how some people you called it internalized racism and it says and he's talking about black responses black and brown responses to racism and colonization and they're pr pretty much three he said one sought to end racism and form a family rooted in our mutual recognition of the imago day and belief in the lawsuit upright another group accepted the black light and tried to make the most of it that's kind of what you're talking about some

people internalize it and just went along with it and didn't revolt then it said they looked for an eschatological redemption then a third saw hope in revolution and so it's important that we understand this family and again this is all addressed in the book this is all addressed in my book and dr band 2 writes the the afterward for my book and so uh here's our last question man because you you talk about language in your book gospel note and uh you said the gays word hemanot can mean faith belief religion creed and is a

uniquely african alternative to the dominant hellenistic term theology so here's what i want to do explain the language barriers to understanding african christianity yeah that's oh man that's that's a great question and and if if i could maybe just make tie it in with with just making a brief comment with the quote that you were reading and the kind of the different strands of thought because i think it all ties together very well because i i would even i would even want to maybe even add a maybe a fourth school of thought uh you know

to that those approaches because you know in in um you know sometimes in my classes i'll even talk about um you know how we have colonial theology but then you know we often have like uh post-colonial theology or d colonial theology or anti-colonial theology and i and hear me right because i think all of that is necessary because the reality is is that you know as african-americans native americans latinx whatever we are we are we have been a colonized people and so we cannot we we can't uh we can't escape the fact that there is

anti-colonial and decolonial work that needs to be done yes and amen but i want to add another category to it which is the ah colonial theology that means like theology that knows no colonization i'm talking about come on biology where it's an undominated theology there's no and and here's why i think this is so important because we as black people we have to know how to articulate what it means to be black in god's image what did it mean what does it mean that god made us black on purpose what does that mean in addition

to our response to racism and oppression here i got to say one more time what does it mean to be black in god's eyes in addition to our response to oppression and i say that it's so important that we know how to answer that because sometimes i think that we might think even subconsciously that the totality of the black experience in black culture is basically just these various responses to what white people have done first right but yeah i think we have to remember that again there is anti-colonial and decolonial work that needs to be

done because these things happen slavery jim crow tara lynching mass incarceration these things have happened and they are happening so we have to fight back and and exactly right i agree with with you pastor gay and what dr mccauley was saying that there are these kind of strands of thought but the other thing i want to draw to this is why i study this leads into your question this is why i study ancient african languages because there are colonial they don't they weren't responding to western colonialism because they never were colonized in the first place

and so then we are able to go back we're able to sign kofa and go back and understand who are we as african descended people other than just a reaction to or a footnote in the history of western oppression and and so we have to understand what exactly that means we have to think about people like phyllis wheatley right who was a theologian who was a christian apologist but she also drew upon her african ancestry when she talked about the sun veneration because africans going back to ancient egypt nubia and all the way across west

africa have worshipped the sun so even in her poetry and scholars have noted this that even in her poetry she has son that and i go into this in gospel i haven't known she has a son veneration and an emphasis on the son in her poetry now it's not in a worshipful way because she understood that there's no lord but jesus christ but at the same time as part of her african culture she still uses the sun and that actually was something that happened in ancient ethiopian churches as well where they still incorporated that so

that's contextualization and it's no different than european christians making christmas trees or making christmas reefs or using the name easter to celebrate the holy pasca they took their culture their pre-christian anglo-saxon culture and brought it in and so in the same way african asian native american all of us have a way of under the authority of the word of god and through the guidance of the holy spirit and no other spirit that we also our our ancestry and traditions can also have a place of redeemed and transformed place in our worship of jesus christ and

our ancestors even here even in the united states did that and continue to retain african culture and so that's why it's so important to go to the languages as you ask about the language barriers because that's a big issue and that's where it can help us to go back and again sankofa and understand how theology was done uh in in a yes african-american but also in an african context because again you know as you mentioned the word hymanote and ge is it's an ethiopian word and actually in various ethiopian irritating languages that means faith but

it's a holistic term as you said it means faith actions deeds and so it speaks again as we said at the beginning to that holistic idea that spirituality is not divorced from social life or social action and so again that's that's uh i mean that's a whole other issue right that plays into modern day issues but again the issue again that goes to language is that um at the after the council of cal state in 451 the ethiopian egyptian newbies the majority christians of africa they had a position that was different than the roman church

and a lot of it had to do with language they were talking about jesus's humanity and his divinity and they had these different words that were really kind of linked to european greek culture about the difference between person and nature that didn't that didn't translate that didn't uh that didn't really communicate into an african context where for example in certain languages where they don't have that same division of person and nature but those things go together and so that's why that's that's really two reasons i think to sum it up why it's important to understand

and engage uh in african languages and understanding how language is a symbol of how people communicate themselves and there are many other symbols too that we do in the black church and black culture whether it's music or or or preaching style or ministry style or all those kind of things but language as well is one of those symbols that go back to our ancestry that we have to be able to express in our own way because when even when we look at the gospel writers you know luke wrote more towards the gentiles matthew wrote more

towards the hebrews and they used different symbols different ideas different concepts to communicate the same truth so it has to be the one truth one lord one faith one baptism but it does translate into other languages and embrace other concepts and so that's where uh oh i think oh man hold on guys hopefully we uh think we lost him for a second oh oh man oh man oh i think we got him back okay we got you back oh okay sorry about that but yeah um yeah yeah so you you were you were saying um

the last thing we caught you were again saying kofa and just for people don't know san copa means to go back it's an african term this eye this con this concept of going back uh to retrieve that was was lost or even to learn from things from the past and so you were talking about just that same code for moment that we're in now as we begin to think through again all of the rich heritage and contribution of africa and obviously africans to the christian faith prior to uh colonization so i wouldn't show there's anything

else you wanted to to add to that dr bad too oh yeah yeah no that i think that's exactly right i would say you know i would say it's um i would say it's a uh maybe a yeah i would agree with what you said pastor and i would say it's a two-sided coin of both going back and retrieving that which was stolen um and you know i mean and and really understanding our answer i mean just as an example my not only myself but my wife and kids and i we're actually all in the

process right now of learning twee which is a ghanaian language uh in order to like as a way of literally going back and getting something that was literally taken and stolen which was our languages from west africa um that's so that's but then i think the other side of that coin too and this is something that i think requires a lot of more conversation with us as a community is going back and getting that which was stolen but also reflecting on that which has been preserved and that is something that i think we need to

do in conversation with our african brothers and sisters and our diaspora diasporic you know afro-caribbean brothers sisters because you know pastor i know you know too that it's funny when you go to africa or you don't have to go to africa when you connect with african people or black people uh throughout the diaspora you start to notice cultural similarities in terms of parenting style in terms of rhythms in terms of of preaching style there are some things that even that body memory takes i'm taking that from because we've been watching high on the hog and

uh and i've been enjoying that netflix show but that is just kind of a reminder to me of how there yes there were a lot of things that were just cut off and that were just uh taken that yes uh that to the degree that we're able and called we need to try to go back and and get but there's also things that have actually been preserved um through community and through family that uh that we can continue to also cultivate wow well thanks thanks thanks so much dr bantu um one thing i i i

do if you have time um uh uh one of one of our viewers put this up and i was one if you can address this right quick this would be the last question because i know we we you know in terms of time but it says do africans see christianity as a white man's religion or is that a western thing oh my goodness um i'll just i'll just answer that by sharing two quick stories um number one uh i just was speaking a couple weeks ago with a collective of churches uh in the greater johannesburg

area that are doing ministry in the townships which is like the south african way of saying the hood um and they and and they they were have they were doing a uh series similar to your book pastor gay about and it was all it was called is christianity white man's religion and they have people all over their context that are saying exactly that that christianity came into south africa through the zulu wars and dutch and english colonization and then apartheid and that you know christianity was the religion that sponsored apartheid so you know it was

and so they are strongly battling and doing apologetics uh with this same thought in south africa second story was i was in senegal and i was teaching the sa i was teaching african christian history to a bunch of senegalese pastors and i was talking about the same thing we were just somebody's podcast christian was in ethiopia nubia egypt all that it was like 40 pastors in the class and senegal is only like five percent christian y'all so i mean like this was making up a large percentage of the body price and they were saying we

have never heard this information we have never heard we had no idea that christianity was in africa on the other side of the continent and then i was telling them also in senegal too it reached there too before colonization but they were like we had no idea because they were saying in senegal which is 95 muslim the perception is that see they got the house of slaves in senegal and i went to visit that as well it's one of those slave castles uh and it's just a it's one of those places that you just you

have to do holy rage when you go visit and holy laments uh it's one of those places with the door no return and one of the last places that our ancestors stepped foot on african soil before they were uh brutally kidnapped and raped and and herded even worse than cattle and shipped over in ships over to america so they and there's a church right next to the house of slaves where the portuguese and later the dutch and these other people were claiming or or saying that they were worshiping jesus while they were they were shipping

african flesh over to the americas this was they were telling me the pastor telling me when people think of christianity that's what they think of and so that's why their context is a 95 muslim context now i was telling them like actually islam came into senegal in the 11th century by a force by the sword with the aomorable dynasty that came in from morocco but that's another story but on the flip side so actually even in synagogue islam came through dominance as well but christianity true christianity came in from africans way before the portuguese came

and built those slave castles but all that to say yes it is this is a look this is a global crisis and i'm not using that word lightning this is a global gospel crisis because it's in japan it's in saudi arabia it's in india it's in africa it's among native americans and americans and black folks in the americas it's it's i've dealt with it with black folks in england it's everywhere the concept that christianity is a white man's religion the lie that it's a white man's religion because of all the white washing that pastor gay

covers in the book and he's going to break it down to you in that book and it's fire so y'all need to go and get a copy of the white washing of christianity pastor jerome gay right now cop you a cop i already got mine at the crib and and i'm having my students read it pastor and so get you a copy because he breaks it down and so when the way that you break it down pastor it makes it clear why people think that and so again it's because of the white washing that people

have that mentality but praise be to god that the same multi-ethnic body that he died and rose again for that we see it adds to and that's still around today has always been there and that the gospel has been among our people since day one amen amen dr band too man thank you so much thank you so much i i can't thank you enough um family i i pray you've been as blessed by this as i have listen uh again you know we're talking about my book but we we this is all love get dr

bantu's book here get get that one a multitude of all peoples make make sure you get that a multitude of all peoples also get gospel hey manat make sure you get that um sign up again for my sister's conference taking place in september september 3rd and 4th my sister lisa fields who's killing it for apologetics i got two books renewal grace and redemption the story of ruth it's a commentary on the book of ruth we got to write more commentaries that's available wherever books are sold as well as obviously the book i'm really talking about

really excited about what god is doing with this and god is opening doors with some non-believers with uh with with millions of people following them uh this is this information began to get out so i pray that you will support and get that and listen family if you want signed copies you want signed copies go to my website uh you can get signed copies of either both of these books you get signed up to both and again with this one you can get kindle kendall is on sale right now so download the kindle version but

again dr bantu you know thank you so much i'm excited to see you next month man in dc with my sister lisa fields and tons of other scholars and i want to end with this family because dr bantu alluded to it but this is so important that you get this the reason we have to address whitewashing and i say this every chance i get the answer to whitewashing is not blackwashing and we we're not discounting the contributions of other people of the faith the issue is so the issue isn't the inclusion of my white brothers

and sisters the issue is the exclusion of my black and brown brothers and sisters because they're there when you look at saint vladimir's press and you look at the scholarly publications they have literally painted everybody in scripture and in history white and that's a problem all christians should have not just black and browns not just people of a darker hue and so this is an evangelistic issue because people are choosing to reject christ as a result of these issues and so family i just pray that you'll get the book um and i'm gonna go through

and let you see some of the love man you you know these are some of the comments jasmine smith from what you said man uh winner todd uh one of the family of vision what's up winner looking forward to seeing you guys i'm back next week can't wait john m get you to praise hands man servant of christ said amen jt just gave you the fires uh people said got both books from us man and so i can't even get to everything man it's it's a lot of comments but i just want you to see

the love family thank you guys so much for tuning in dr bantu man thank you again for this i will be back we'll continue to have more content go get dr bantu's book get my book the white washington christianity it will help you there are discussion questions in there as well and they're over 240 citations so we're not just saying stuff the references are here so you can go and check behind us so listen you've been tuned into the urban perspective i love you god bless you peace