Pastor Eric
Pastor Eric Mason 45, lead pastor at Epiphany Fellowship Church.
We are on a journey.
One of my mentors, Carl Ellis, talks about the history of Blackness and the name stages specifically in the United States.
He talks about three things that we are looking for:
Dignity, identity and significance. Dignity being “what’s my value?”, identity being “who am I?” and significance being “what is my purpose?." You can’t define Blackness without defining these three terms. When I think of the future of Blackness, I see us finally at a place in this country where we can begin thinking about what it looks like to shape what those three things are for ourselves.
A lot of Black people are getting in touch with Africa to see if we can pick up where we left. Although, I think it’s impossible to do that since so much of that was bred out of us generationally, I do think that the quest to connect with Africa is good. The future is going to have a greater sense of identity with Black people across the world that would identify themselves as sons and daughters of Africa not just entomologically, but ethnically. It might be a more pan-African future.
Edward Blyden and Alexander Crummell are the fathers of Pan-Africanism. They happen to both have had movements in Christianity.
One of the things I get concerned about is when people say that Christianity is a “white man’s religion”. There is no way that you can study African religions without studying Christianity. Christianity for the first 1000 years survived most on the African continent. So, to study African religions is also to study Christianity. When you look early church fathers, you realize that most of them are North African mainly Egyptian, Libyan, Ethiopian, Nubian or Sudanese. I tell people not to think of American, white, Christianity that was forced on Black people. But to think of the fact that our narrative as Black people didn’t start in 1619. It started thousands of years ago on the continent of Africa.
Many people don’t realize that the legacy of people that we came from were already “woke”. A lot of historical black colleges were started in the basement of the black church. Whether you believe in Christ as your savior or not, the socio-economic statistics show the black church’s commitment to developing institutions. The Abyssinian Baptist Church started a bank so that the Black people of Harlem could actually buy homes in multiple parts of New York because, redlining prevented them from doing so. We did for ourselves what the country wouldn’t do and it was through Black churches.
When you look at the fact that we were comprehensively illiterate to American culture after the abolition of slavery because of our slave masters, you see how Mother Bethel AME started a literacy program that taught the enslaved to grow in their literacy only because of the Black church’s commitment to institutional development.
I want the true historical Jesus to shape my future. Not the white man in the picture, but the true biblical, historical revolutionary who changed the trajectory of the globe. For me, I would love for His voice to be preeminent and paramount in shaping us.
Pastor Eric's Revolutionary Picks:
Edward Blyden and Alexander Crummell are the fathers of Pan-Africanism. They happen to both have had movements in Christianity.
The Abyssinian Baptist Church started a bank so that the Black people of Harlem could actually buy homes in multiple parts of New York because, redlining prevented them from doing so. We did for ourselves what the country wouldn’t do and it was through Black churches.