Lisa Fields, founder of apologetics ministry Jude 3 Project, recently took on the question of whether Christianity is the White man’s religion in a debate on Fox Soul TV.
Fields appeared on a panel that also included a Yoruba priest, a celebrity psychic, and a pastor.
Tammi Mack, the host of the “Business of Being Black” show, started off the program by noting that Black Americans have been leaving churches in significant numbers.
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NBC News reported last year that:
“While churches have been a bedrock of Black American life for generations, especially through their roles in racial justice movements and community building, a significant portion of Gen Z and millennial Black Americans don’t attend church, according to the Pew Research Center.
“In fact, 28 percent of Black Gen Zers and 33 percent of Black millennials are religiously unaffiliated, compared to 11 percent of baby boomers, who are ages 57 to 75, the report said. As a result, younger generations are less likely to rely on prayer, less likely to have grown up in Black churches and less likely to say religion is an important part of their lives, the report said.”
So is Christianity a white man’s religion?
According to Fields, that’s a valid question, considering how the religion was used by slaveholders to further oppress enslaved African Americans.
She specifically pointed to the Slave Bible, versions of the Holy Bible that enslavers edited to omit certain passages about liberation.
Fields, an apologist, said the fact that enslavers had to manipulate the Bible to use it as a tool of oppression suggests that Christianity itself was not to blame.
“Christianity in itself, in its pure form, isn’t oppressive,” Fields said.
Watch a clip of the conversation.
You can watch the full episode titled “Is Christianity the White Man’s Religion?” via Fox Soul TV’s website.
