Survey of Early North African Christianity | The Bisrat Podcast w/ Dr. Vince Bantu

even though there is a sad ending to the story of north african christianity there's still a lesson in it for us i think as christians of all uh cultures but especially as black christians today of the importance of why it is why it is so important in evangelism and in theology and in ministry to really own your own culture your own language your own style and to really express worship and theology in your own ways rather than trying to just kind of impose or bring in something that else seems to be better [Music] well hello

everybody welcome to the jude 3 project uh my name is vince bontu and it is a pleasure uh and a blessing to be able to welcome you to a special ministry uh and podcast of the ju-3 project entitled the bishrat the the word bisrot is actually an ancient east african word in various languages that means the gospel the good news and this was a term that various east african christians in antiquity and today use to reflect the good news of jesus christ and have been using for a long time and we know that at jude

3 we are centered around the gospel and proclaiming the good news and also equipping the body of christ and also the black church and black community to be able to proclaim the bis rot uh or the good news uh to our community in particular and to equip the body uh to really be able to engage questions that are uh prevalent in our community and maybe even objections or just concerns people have about the bis rot especially in the black context and so this podcast called the bis rod will have a special focus on early african

christianity so the bis rot podcast which is a part of the jude 3 project is all about early african christianity and every week we're going to have um a mixture of lectures which is this episode and also we will have some interviews and some conversations with other scholars where myself and other scholars be able to engage specific questions that are really prominent in the black community especially with proclaiming the bis rot in our context in with other religious communities and ideologies and so today is actually the first of four lectures where i will just be

sharing uh some resources and some surveys about early african christianity that will help to really set the stage for uh just a general basically church history survey uh in africa before the modern period or before slavery and the reason that we are going to be looking at african christianity before colonialism is precisely because of one of the most common objections that christianity only entered into the lives of black people through slavery and colonialism and that's why we are focusing on the presence of the bis rot among african peoples before that time period to show that

the bis rot has been present among african peoples from the get-go and we're gonna be each of these four lecture episodes uh or kind of mini lectures or surveys are gonna be focused on the four major areas of christianity in the african continent uh prior to colonialism and one thing that's interesting as we uh and very encouraging as we proclaim the bis rot in our community is that when you look at ancient african history just uh even apart from christianity just african civilizations uh especially in the first millennium like in the first in in late

antiquity or the early medieval period um when you look at africa the continent that we now call africa in that time period and when you look at christianity you're looking at the same thing or another way of saying that is in order to study ancient african christianity or ancient african history is to study african christianity uh what i'm trying to say is that christianity was prevalent and eventually predominant in all of the earliest african civilizations um and and and so it wasn't just present as a minority but eventually came the majority religion and that was

a free decision it was not colonized it was not imposed it was not uh uh forced upon africans in fact many times as we're gonna even see today african people themselves were the ones standing up for the bis rot even to to their own persecution and even sometimes death and many times is at the hands of europeans um and so the four major ancient civilizations of africa in the early church were primarily what's called north africa which is we're going to talk about today and then egypt and then nubia and then ethiopia or what was

called axim so north africa egypt nubia and ethiopia and we're going to talk about a survey of what how the bis rot entered into and grew in those four areas in these four uh many lectures in this bisrock podcast and today we are going to start off with talking about north africa so north africa in the ancient context was was a bit different than it is today when we talk about north africa in a church history context that correlates to the modern nations of libya and tunisia and algeria and morocco and really uh the main

center of that though is what we now call tunisia which was an ancient city named carthage and so carthage was a massive city um that was uh that became part of the roman empire was actually second only to rome in terms of its size and its presence in the mediterranean economy um but actually uh if you look at what um north africa would have looked like in the in the modern period i've already listed the modern nations that that they're known by and then even if you were to go back to like the early church

for example in the first second third centuries well at that time period what we now call north africa was actually a colony or had actually become colonized by the roman empire um and and they and the names of them were were different there was different they were basically roman provinces or roman colonia or colonies and you had for example in modern libya that was a colony known as byzan cena and then you also had what's called in tunisia or around carthage which was the major city of north africa was a region known as africa proconsularis

and then you also had numedia and mauritania and uh even there were two different new medias and two different mauritanias and so there was about seven or so roman provinces in the uh in in the time right before christianity and during the early church but if we go back even further to start off the story even before christianity came into north africa or even before the life and ministry of jesus um if we look at the map in that time period it actually looks very different and as you see right here there were really originally

four uh kingdoms in north africa that were unique and indigenous to north africa before they became roman colonies and those four kingdoms were going from west to east mauritania far to the west which would have been partly in morocco and in algeria and then you all then you would have had the moving east you would have had the kingdom known as masili then moving further east uh then you would have had the kingdom known as masili and then finally uh to the furthest east uh in in carthage that was the kingdom of carthage right now

if we were to rewind the clock the clock even further the carthaginian kingdom actually themselves um were indigenous north africans unlike the romans again who colonized north africa later but they actually even themselves migrated and brought a distinct culture from the near east going back really far like back to the 10th century bc and so if you go back to the 10th century that was actually when the phoenicians that are mentioned in scripture who were from the near east uh you know from the area near modern lebanon and palestine the phoenicians some of them actually

migrated over into carthage and they actually created a phoenician civilization that was later known as punic so if you've ever heard the word punic before even the word punic is related to the word phoenician similar letters and so they the carthaginian kingdom was settled a thousand years before christianity by phoenicians who came to modern-day tunisia and built the city of carthage and they they were north africans but they were also culturally distinct from the indigenous north africans who had been there even before the punics and so these are the people that are properly known as

imazirin and imazilan are is the modern name that these people groups native north africans uh still go by now you might know them by their colonial name that has been put upon them and you'll often more often see in scholarship which is the word berber but i want to encourage you to stop using that word because that is a a western and a roman imposition put upon them that even in scholarship is used to refer to the native indigenous north africans uh so you will hear the word berber but i would encourage you to use

their own name that they still today use it for themselves which is imazil and so in north africa you had originally you had two cultures that were living side by side and and to many degree to a large extent influenced one another they traded with one another um they lived next door each other but at the same time they were distinct and so again carthage was the territory of the punics and they spoke the punic language and they had different slightly different gods and goddesses and slightly different culture a different kingdom and then the kingdoms

of masili masili and mauritania these were the indigenous north africans that's that spoke the emazian language and they were themselves imazin now the kingdoms of masasili and masili in the third century bc united and they became known as the kingdom of new media you might have heard the name new media before and that actually happened uh in the midst of when the romans began to come into and be and create or colonize and absorb these various north african regions which was a process that took a few centuries and by the time of christianity had become

complete but what happened was the um the the new midian's uh under king masinisa who is known as like one of the most famous uh north african kings in history uh was actually teaming up with another the uh with another leader in carthage known as uh scifix and they were actually engaging with warfare with the romans who at this time in the third century were not the power that they would have been in the you know after the time of julius caesar and in the time of christianity but what had happened was my masinissa who

is the king of a united new media who brought together my sicilian masali had actually switched sides and joined with the romans against cfax and actually fought against the carthaginians um and helped to defeat them and in return he uh was promised uh to be supported by the roman empire but essentially what happened was he just new media became what's known as a client kingdom of the roman empire so this was one of the first examples uh probably in history of europeans coming into africa and doing the divide and conquer game and in exchange for

resources africans turning against each other and then that resulting ultimately in the colonization of africa and so that that continued to happen in numidia and as well as carthage as rome eventually became victorious in the punic wars uh after three after three sets of them and and so carthage had become a uh a client colony of of the roman empire and new media became a client kingdom but eventually in the first century became a roman colony and then the same thing happened for the kingdom of mauritania which is in modern day algerian morocco and they

also became a client king after the time of king juba in the first century so by the time of by and well after basically what had happened after that was now from that point on right around the time that uh that right around the time that uh christianity came on the scene um the roman empire had just finished kind of absorbing these ancient north african kingdoms into becoming roman colonies and at that point you started to see a whole lot more roman culture roman cities being built all throughout uh north africa and you know in

new media roman roads and and and a lot more latin culture and roman administrative aspects being put into north africa and um but the in in a lot more latin speaking but the indigenous iman zirin or and um and also punic civilization still continue to thrive and so by the time of christianity you had three major language groups and cultures that were living in north africa that to a large degree were interdependent and uh and influenced one another but at the same time we're still distinct and those three languages and cultures were latin slash roman

punic and imazirin which is again an erroneously called berber often times so these were the three different languages and on this next uh slide you can see pictures of the native indigenous imazirin language and civilization uh right here you see uh these these these sacrificial stela or or or towers you might be used to seeing the taller ones of egypt and ethiopia or in nubia even but these smaller ones were dedications to to uh punic and imazun gods uh like tanit who was the most famous probably of punic and and and imazu and gods and

goddesses and it was associated with the moon so if you notice the large there large stala there has a moon disk on top of it uh and these are often called madrasans and these madrasans had a lot uh had had to do with uh infant protection of infant um uh health and so but you can see examples here on both of these madrasans of the native uh imaziran language or again the berber language but the imazing language is written here and actually on the right there you see picture of masinissa on on some numismatic evidence

or a coin of masinissa and also those are thought to be his bones that are from from his royal madrasan or tomb now you know uh you can see right there an image of of king masinisa and it is on a coin but that kind of leads me to another point um that i think we is an elephant in the room that we always need to address especially as black people which is are we talking about black people here and and this is a very controversial issue um but uh as the physical evidence itself would

show uh i would i would argue that no that these that people in north africa were not black both by modern definitions of what black means or by ancient definitions because to be sure ancient people did have categories like black and white and the north africans would often talked about themselves uh as being a distinct people from black now let me be very clear this does not mean that they were white or european but they were what they are today they were brown people and they were from a north african imaziran asiatic racial group that

was neither european nor sub-saharan african um and and so and this is also not analogous to you know kind of someone like myself or other people you know obama or bob marley who are multi-racial uh a mixture of sub-saharan african and european we're not talking about that either we're talking about a distinct racial group uh in north africa that's neither european nor sub-saharan african and the evidence itself shows it in fact the um these madrasans here are actually from hippo which is from one of the most famous theologians in north african church history augustine and

at that same site there's actually mosaics present there that show north africans that are from hippo depicting themselves with very fair skin and straight hair and then next to them they actually have a what was called an ethiopian slave which just meant black person and we'll get more into that um and so even from that mosaic and other ones like it you can see the very clear uh distinction racial distinction between north africans and egyptians and then sub-saharan africans which were a different they were two different racial groups um and uh and so but at

the same time these are still africans and again they're not europeans but that's something that we need to clarify um now as i said though these are still north africans and they have their own indigenous north african culture and we're seeing some of the few evidences of that but as christianity and i'll make a point about this later but as christianity continued to grow and spread in north africa it was largely strongly connected to the latin language and roman culture and administrative and ecclesiastical structures and and so we'll get into more of the implications of

that but uh not long after you have um mentions in scripture even itself in acts 2 about libyans being present at pentecost and simon of cyrene and then also his his sons who also uh you know went on to spread the gospel so we already see that the beginnings of north african christianity places like cyrene and carthage and others begins in the bible itself and it makes sense because there's large jewish community there like simon himself and just like in every other direction christianity originally spread along jewish communities and then went uh from jewish egyptians

jewish ethiopians jewish persians jewish indians jewish romans and greeks into gentile populations in those same regions and so but in north africa very quickly after the time of the new testament we get some of the earliest examples of of christian theologians and figures in history and probably two of the best examples of that you know at the turn of the third century around the year 200 is um uh first of all tertullian who lived in the late second and early third century is one of the first theologians to write in the latin language and he

was one of the first ones to use the the term trinity and he wrote on a plethora of ethical and theological issues and he was actually also associated with a particular christian group that that had started in asia minor but actually had some of its largest followings in north africa and so in some ways you could say that this was a largely north african christian movement known as montanism and many people uh would say that montanism in a way is like almost like an ancient version of pentecostalism because the mountainous had a strong emphasis on

the holy spirit it was actually origin it was actually officially called the new prophecy is what they called themselves um and so tertullian did really attach himself to a unique style of christianity in some ways that was rooted in north africa um and uh and also another example of early north african christianity is the famous martyrs perpetua and felicity and perpetual was a noble woman who many people think that she actually wrote the biography that tells the story about how her and the servant woman felicitas were both with another group of people were persecuted and

eventually thrown into the the carthaginian coliseum which is a picture there right there in the middle and that's a dedication to them uh you know to perpetuate felicity who were martyred at that coliseum in carthage but um but but that's you know again we we cannot understate the significance of the fact that what is probably the first christian text written by a woman was a north african woman was a carthaginian uh imazirin woman north african woman who wrote her own story and even in it there is all these uh these these empowering examples of how

she's going to her death uh you know for the for the gospel and she also is likely connected to the montenes or the new prophecy because she has all these amazing visions from the lord and she goes to her death bravely but even her father tries to stop her and visit her in jail and he even like starts to try to physically abuse her and she still resists his authority and it's a powerful example of women african women standing up uh for the gospel and uh and going to their death now we also need to

pause and think about who is the one doing the killing right now uh who are the ones that are initiating these persecutions well at the turn at the turn of the third century around 200 septimus severus was initiating uh the roman emperors initiating strong persecutions of christians but it's interesting to me that we get examples in the early church of roman emperors and roman leaders persecuting christianity in the roman empire and you know north africa this part was a part of the roman empire was a colony and it's interesting to me that the initiators of

persecution are roman leaders and some of the most famous stories we see of people who resist that persecution and resist those attempts to uh convert are actually north africans and people from carthage and we'll talk later uh in the next episode about egypt and so this flies in the face of the the story and the narrative that we hear in our community often times by people who are who you know are resistant to christianity that christianity is from the white man and christianity came from the roman empire and they invented christian doctrine um and they

forced it upon africans when you look at north africa in the second and third century you get the exact opposite impression because number one when we look at people like tertullian we see that this north african theologian in the 200s over a century before the roman empire became allegedly christianized that there was already north african theologians like like tertullium who were already arguing for the trinity and for the full lordship of jesus christ so christians especially african christians already believed in the lordship of jesus christ long before the roman empire decided to uh allegedly jump

on board with it and not only that but you have martyrs like perpetua and felicity who are bravely going to their death they're dying for the gospel so their christianity is not being imposed upon africans in north africa in the third century but on the on the flip side africans are actually african christians are willingly going to their death because they refuse to renounce the lord jesus christ as lord and savior so again this this uh this is um uh this is why this history is so pertinent to know um now continuing on with north

african christianity the issue of martyrdom and uh and suffering for the faith was another very important theme in north african christianity and in fact in the later third century and in the fourth century and even into the fifth that would continue to be a very point a very strong point of contention and debate in the north african church and because what had happened was you had uh you had churches that were um or or you had christian leaders in north africa that were basically debating well if you have somebody who uh is being like perpetual

felicity uh that that are being martyred for their faith right but a lot of times you know there were a lot of christians who didn't go out like a soldier like perpetua felicity did but sometimes they would renounce christ or they would you know uh say that they weren't a christian or that or they would choose to buy a certificate uh in order to you know have to not have to sacrifice or they would sacrifice to the roman gods there was all different reactions as you can imagine just like even today there's different reactions to

christian persecution and people make different decisions and so but the question that came up is in the church that the church was debating in north africa was if you have christians who renounce jesus in times of persecution but then when the persecution kind of like ended or declined then they wanted to come back to church and repent of what they had did and say oh i you know i didn't mean it i was trying to save my life um the question was you know are they now are they still saved are they part of the

church or are they now condemned like jesus said if you deny me before men i'll deny you for the father that was a strong debate and uh and and at first in the third century it was mainly a debate between the bishop of carthage who his name is cyprian so cyprian was probably the next major north african theologian after the time of totalium and one of the most famous texts that cyprian wrote was one that was called on the unity of the church and it was when he was presenting the side of the argument that

was saying that well you know we can forgive and we can bring back in christians who had who had renounced jesus to save their life and we can forgive them and so but what happened was there were some christians who didn't agree with that and they were more strict about it and say no they're not christian anymore they can't be in the church they can't have communion and so they were led by a person named novation and ovation was another uh you know bishop in north africa at that time who they were arguing about this

and cyprian uh even though they were arguing about the the issue of whether or not to forgive the people who had who had renounced jesus a big part of the issue was also the authority of the church of carthage and that was really cyprian's one of his big deals of saying that you know the biggest issue is actually the fact that y'all are trying to start a separate church so that was another question of like is there going to be one church uh church authority in north africa or are there multiple ones but you can

see this here when cyprian is critiquing the novationist novation and his followers when he says these doubtless he's talking about now the people that repented these people doubtless they imitate and follow who despising god's tradition seek after strange doctrines and bring in teachings of human appointment whom the lord rebukes and reproves in his gospel saying you reject the commandment that you may keep your own tradition this is a worse crime than that which the lapsed and when he talks about laps as he's talking about the people who had lapsed into apostasy and then came back

but he's saying that the novationists the people who were saying that they're unforgiving that they're he's saying that that's an even worse crime than that which the lap seemed to have fallen into who nevertheless standing as penitents for their crime beseech god with full satisfactions um so this issue continued to rage in north africa and it really again set the stage for is there going to be one church that's in charge or can there be multiple churches now going into the 300s into the fourth century there it was interesting because there was like the same

issue but different people now and different names in the 4th century there was a person named donatus who was making similar arguments because in the early 300s right before constantine's alleged conversion the emperor diocletian was persecuting christians worse than any roman emperor before him and this was the it's called the great persecution in the early 300s it was the worst persecution in the history of the church uh in the roman empire that is because again uh in other empires there were other things going on but donatus argued the same thing that novation did almost a

century before him that if you renounce christ you're not you're not you're not saved anymore and the donutists were his followers and that was a major movement especially in north africa uh it wasn't you know again um it wasn't only in north africa but uh kind of like montanism most of the followers of donutism were in north africa so in a way you could there is a degree to which you could say that donutism was a north african religion now this gets into uh the time period of the most famous north african christian in the

history of north african christianity i don't even got to tell you the brother's name because you already know augustine and so augustine is one of the most influential theologians in the history of western christianity it's interesting he had more of an effect on european christianity than he actually did on african christianity which we'll talk about later but augustine lived in the late fourth and early fifth century and he wrote many different texts like city of god um where he's the first christian to make an argument for just war and also a lot of kind of

church state relations he also wrote his confessions that talks a lot about his own spiritual life and his conversion um but he also wrote a lot against the donatus he he was that was one of his biggest enemies uh in his whole uh uh career as the bishop of hippo which again hippo it's called hippo ragius because it was the capital city of numidia even going back to the numidian time period and so like cyprian did in the 200s augustine in the three and four hundreds his main argument against the donations was actually not that

they were being so strict against these people who had rejected uh you know uh who had rejected christ and then tried to come back but it was again about church authority his main issue like cyprian was how dare you have a separate church there's only one church and it was the church of carthage that was also in connection with the church so you see here this is augustine also arguing against uh the donatists when he says but if anyone who has it in his power to receive baptism within the catholic church prefers from some perversity

of mind to be baptized in schism when he says baptizing schizophrenia somewhat being baptized by the donuts and he's calling the donuts to schismatics and there's one church and it's the catholic church which just it's not the same as saying roman catholic church like in our days but he's just saying the universal church which for augustine was centered in rome and also its extension of authority in carthage that he that he was a part of um and actually that picture there is actually a baptismal a donut is baptismal because this this this issue is so

tense in the north african church that they had separate the catholics and the donations had separate churches they had separate baptismals they had separate bishops separate everything um and that's actually from a city named tim god which was a roman city in what's now algeria or an ancient new media and and that was actually one of their biggest strongholds of donatus was in the city of tim god and that's actually where they had their own baptismal um and so anyway augustine is saying that that these donutists have a perversity of mind to be baptized and

schism even he afterwards be thinks himself to come to the catholic church because he is assured that there that sacrament will profit him which can indeed be received but cannot profit elsewhere beyond all question he is perverse and guilty of sin and the more freight the more flagrant in proportion as it was committed willfully for that he entertains no doubt that the sacrament of baptism is rightly received in the church he means the catholic church not the donatus church and is proved by his conviction that it is there that he must look for profit even

from what he has received elsewhere and so again you see that augustine's main issue here is not actually whether or not people are being too strict against the lapsed but it's actually about proper church authority so this leads into another very controversial debate in north african christianity which is that you know basically was augustine kind of like representing the more like official catholic church that had its north african leadership centered in carthage but then in turn was also officially under the roman bishop at that time and then was the donut is more of like an

indigenous north african christianity and was there like a like kind of a cultural or even racial um or ethnic element to this debate that's a very controversial topic in early christian studies i just want to let you know even phds and early churches do not agree on that question and i think there's a lot of elements to it we don't have time to get into all of this today but i will just kind of quickly come out and say that my um my two cents on it and when you look at the evidence uh is

actually that i think that there are scholars who maybe took it too far and called the donuts movement like a a nationalist movement and i think that's taking it too far and that's a modern kind of anachronistic interpolation but i would say that uh there is an ethnic sense to it in in the sense that donatism was really kind of more local to the african african community and it was associated with north africa and it was often called like an african movement by some of its leaders and also by augustine himself in some of his

letters against some of the donuts as leaders he himself is is is acknowledging the fact that people associate donutism as being a more north african religion so i think that yes it's true that there were catholics so to speak and donuts in north africa catholics like augustine but i also do think that the evidence shows that people assault even augustine himself associated donatism with being kind of a more north african religion now why am i bringing this up i'm bringing this up to say this is another lesson we can learn as we're doing apologetics in

today's world because what you have here is you have a a theologian like augustine who himself was a north african he was an immigrant or he was a uh actually he was a punic because he speaks about his mother being punic and and he has a little bit of ability to know the punic culture but he was really more educated in milan under ambrose and cicero and and his thinking culture is a lot more latin and roman in terms of his style and his his you know theology and his philosophy is a lot more european

or roman so his church structure and his theology and who he was kind of in league with in this context was more again the authority in rome and he really worked to suppress the more indigenous north african church tradition now when you add that together with the fact that as i mentioned earlier north african christianity with people like tritalion and augustine and cyprian they did not really write in the indigenous languages like the imazin or even the punic languages and the architecture of churches and baptismals was following the roman style the point i'm making is

that the the nature of christianity in north africa was extremely romanized and even augustine's thought process was highly romanized and latinized um and even the one maybe example to a degree even though they were writing in latin too uh but even in the sense of just being regionally connected to the north africa the one example of a maybe more indigenous north african uh religious community like the donatist was largely suppressed not only by the roman church but even by the supporters of the roman church in north africa and so the lesson that i think we

can learn from this is that we are still dealing with this issue in modern forms today in the black church and black community where our indigenous styles of preaching our indigenous styles of doing theology our indigenous styles of worship and doing church are often looked down upon and disrespected by even christians in the dominant culture saying that it's not intellectually respectable or that it's not intellectually spiritually profound but i think and even sometimes some of us in our community especially if we go into uh white seminaries or white spaces or denominations we will sometimes even

imbibe that same self-hatred and think that our own indigenous black church traditions are not spiritually and theologically rich and profound which they are and we will sometimes imbibe that same kind of self-hatred and think that white theology white doctrines are better and i think that there is a degree in which some many north african christians and theologians fell prey to that and i would say that that is one of the reasons that north african christianity ultimately did not survive because what happens later after the time of augustine there was a little time there was a

little period where the vandals you know kind of this uh like like kind of gothic culture from central europe and uh and the iberian peninsula came in and conquered north africa for a century but then they got kicked out by emperor justinian in the 6th century but then in the 7th century that was the death blow to north african christianity and what happens in the 600s we all know the rise of islam so islam grows in the arabian peninsula and consolidates power and then it comes over and conquers egypt quickly in 642 and then into

libya and then eventually around the turn of the 8th century around the year 700 the city of carthage the ancient almost 2000 year old civilization of carthage is destroyed by the rationing caliphate in the late uh um uh 7th century and so it was very soon after that that you don't see any more evidence or any more mention of christians in north africa going all already into the 8th 19th century this church this church tradition that lasted for you know almost 700 years from the first century from the beginning of the church all the way

up until the 7th century in the rise of islam is a 700 year church history of perpetual felicity of tertullian of cyprian of augustine that lasted for so long and then almost just quickly disappears and is um just completely uh covered over with islam and and and it disappears and why is that um i would i would present to you today and i think that by the end of the this series of episodes you'll be able to understand a little bit more when we compare some of these uh pieces of evidence to uh like egyptian

or ethiopian christian for example who is who are other ancient christians that do survive to the present and whose communities still have lasted centuries of european oppression and colonialism and of islamic persecution and all that kind of stuff they still survive and the reason why is because they are much more they were much more connected to their own local uh language and culture and theology and and and built their own indigenous tradition in a way to a degree that the north africans really didn't do as much um and so again that's a uh even though

there is a sad ending to the story of north african christianity there's still a lesson in it for us uh i think as christians of all uh cultures but especially as black christians today of the importance of why it is why it is so important in evangelism and in theology and in ministry to really own your own culture your own language your own style and to really express worship and theology in your own ways rather than trying to just kind of impose or bring in something that else seems to be better but the last thing

i will end with that is another name that we need to know um and another uh unspoken name that needs to be more known is the name of queen kahina so queen kahina was the queen of new media and who worked again under as a you know as a roman colonia in the 7th century and she was a christian queen like most at that time in the 600s most north africans were christians and she actually successfully fought off the muslims initially so as i said even though the muslims conquered north africa and destroyed carthage and

then rebuilt the city of tunis as a as an islamic kind of center in the in north africa and on the continent initially though queen kahina was successful in repelling and pushing back the islamic forces back she pushed them all the way from carthage into libya and won an initial victory so again even though they initially came back and defeated her army and defeated carthage um it's just such a powerful uh image to think about that when when muslims came into north africa they and they came in conquering with the sword what they encountered in

egypt which we'll talk about next and also in north africa they encountered a bunch of african christians who were even willing to fight and defend their homeland and uh and to maintain it being a christian kingdom and it was led by a north african christian queen named queen kahina and so this again just flies in the face also for example of anybody in our community that is going to tell us something like well you know islam is the real religion of the black man we're moors and we're we all came from uh you know from

the moors and and that's our ancestors we were all muslim and then christianity was imposing us later like nah bruh look at the record actually it was the is the complete flip if you really want to say we're moore's and you really want to talk about moores and north africans which also more is is a is an offensive term as well like berber if you want to talk about immigrants if you want to say that we're all from like immigrant land okay well let's go back to imazing land let's go back to numedia and and

and and uh and carthage and and mauritania let's see what was going on there even before islam even existed and what we will find is that the so-called moors or the so or the imam zirin like augustine certainly perpetrating felicity and queen kahina were christians and they were freely christians and on the flip side when islam comes in at the end of the 600s it comes in by the sword and it comes in conquering and enforcing so islam is actually what became in by force in africa whereas christianity came in freely by some of the

earliest apostles and early people like simon cyrene there's no imposition and in fact on the flip side they actually died for the faith like perpetual felicity against the europeans the romans who were trying to impose paganism and and polytheism the last thing i'm going to mention to illustrate uh the the literal christian foundations of north africa is the fact that on the uh right here next to queen kahindo you see an image of the the mosque of carowan and carowan is one of the most uh sacred sites for islam in the continent of africa this

is the oldest mosque on the continent of africa um and and this is this was built soon after the conquest of of tunis um or the building of tunis and the conquest of carthage but there's a lot of they built it so quick that they used a lot of the same material and bricks that they just destroyed from roman temples and from christian churches so if you look at that central image that is actually a pillar inside the mosque of carawan the oldest mosque in africa but notice what's on that pillar it's a cross because

they took they took material to make their mosque out of churches and so this is a literal visual reminder that that even that after islam came into africa and enforced itself and conquered the indigenous imazum people that they built they built their literal mosque on christian foundation islam was built in africa on literal christian foundations you have a cross in the oldest mosque on the continent of africa so just that image speaks to us about the fact that yes islam has a very long track record among african peoples but more often than not it entered

through conquest and that continues on into west africa and central african history as well whereas but this image also shows us a deeper truth which is that even before islam even existed that the cross of jesus christ was being symbolized to depict the faith of north african people in the lord and savior jesus christ that had freely come in in the first century and had freely thrived um and shaped north african civilization and language and literature for almost a millennium so thank you very much for your time uh in this podcast in this first episode

of the bistrot podcast and i would love to continue to chop it up with you hit me up if you have any questions about north african christianity or just want to continue any of these topics in general uh and we will see you at the next episode of the bistrot podcast god bless you here's what we know at boost that keeping up with the marketing demands of today is almost impossible you need graphics you need video you need social media strategy and a whole lot more to stay relevant and keep up that's why we launched

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