The Scattered, Part One
It's spiritual. It always is.
Originally published in 2014.
This essay is directed toward persons who are of black African descent and toward all observant Jews and Christians. If you don't fall into these categories, that's fine and it's okay if you comment, but for you, the premises on which this essay is based don't apply.
I sent a copy of this essay to Dr. Michael S. Heiser (1963-2023) a while back. I never got a reply, but his dissertation on the Divine Council Worldview provided a framework for these observations. I look forward to meeting him at the Big Party.
We watch as set after set after set of black Americans blunder shortsightedly, and it gives me one basic feeling. Fatigue.
I am tired. Tired of the stupid stuff. Tired of the desire for Selbstmord. That last word is German for 'suicide,' and, to me, since I occasionally think in German, it is more descriptive of what I have in mind: not personal suicide, nor even group suicide. Selbstmord connotes - at least in my mind - the psychosis behind following after those who would help your death along and the demonization of those who want to save you - even those of your own number who don't want to follow you into oblivion.
What the Hell is this ... this insanity … about?
Like many others, I’ve considered the perennial plight of black African-descended persons and occasionally wondered whether it is due to some defect in our nature or plain old "bad luck." But, I refuse to believe that God assigns differing potential IQs for different ethnic groups and I don't believe in luck. However, if those notions are discounted, then what is left?
A proper perspective; it's a difficult thing to gain, for many reasons. When considering the truth of a matter, perspectives can take many sizes, shapes, and agendas; some straight, some skewed; others -centric, -phobic, or -supremacist; still others too large or too narrow.
But what about spiritual perspective? Why do we - especially we who are Christians - not view the plight of black African-descended persons from a biblical perspective, especially considering that black persons are specifically mentioned in the Bible?
Answer: because we don't want to. We Christians tend to ignore what God says about black persons in the Bible, and we do so out of two emotions which God says are sins: pride and fear. Well, I'm tired of both of those emotions, in myself and in others, so, Christians, let's walk in truth, without fear and with humility. If we believe that the Bible contains narratives which are true, let's face them and let's walk in that truth.
What the Bible Says
The plight of black people is documented in the book of Genesis and that plight is the result of the disobedience of two of our forefathers - and the consequences of that disobedience have lasted for four thousand years.
If we accept that the sons of Noah were the first to be separated by race and that Ham is the father of the black race, we have but to read and comprehend. So let's read first.
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim and Phut, and Canaan.
7 And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Haviah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sathchah: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.
8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.
10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime they had for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth.
From these passages, and from what we know of the subsequent history of Africa and black African-descended persons, we can only conclude that black people were scattered on purpose. The whole reason that Nimrod built the Tower was to keep his people from being scattered - in direct disobedience to God.
So when God confused their languages, they ended up being scattered anyway and remain so up until today. And every misfortune, every curse, which has befallen black people as a whole is a result of that disobedience in one form or another. We have never wanted to admit this. But if we are indeed the children of Ham, how can we look at the last four millennia of African history and the history of African-descended persons on other continents and believe otherwise?
Are we cursed via the curse of Canaan? Yes. But the curse of Canaan affects only a small portion of Ham’s descendants - he had other children, as mentioned. However, we are largely cursed through this means, this act of pride and hubris from Ham’s grandson, Nimrod, whose name means ‘rebel.’ The Bible history of black African-descended persons explicitly spells out the terms of the Canaanite curse and the terms of the Babel curse are implied: the scattering.
I submit that any black African or anyone of black African descent who is not covered by the atoning blood of Jesus the Christ is still under the terms of the Babel scattering and the Canaanite curse and will still feel the battering of them.
Through the Babel scattering, the entire earth began to speak in different languages, but, in my opinion, the brunt of it fell on Nimrod’s people. One look at the hundreds of languages existing on the African continent makes that plain. If God blesses a people, can He not curse them? To deny the latter is to deny many other Biblical-recorded blessings and curses by God upon other peoples.
God, being merciful, decided to take the terms and effects of these curses and use them to provide the opportunity to lift the curses on some of us by showing us how to be saved. He did this by allowing us to go into captivity into two areas of Christianity: Europe and North America. It is in both of those places that many of our ancestors first heard the Gospel, believed it, accepted it, and relied upon it; and, conversely, it is how we were rescued from the curses and the main snare of the Enemy: idolatry.
Most black people, even those who say they are Christians, don’t want to look too far back into the dismal history of our African ancestors because focusing on it tends to support the long-held allegation that we are genetically inferior to other races. The "inferiority" is not genetic, but spiritual. And the mistake that many have made in researching Africa and Africans isn’t only that many don’t go far enough back in history.
There are more fundamental mistakes: we don’t want to accept the Word of God as history, and, on top of that, we don’t want to accept the judgment of God for the actions of our ancestors. Acknowledging that the judgment exists is the first step toward grabbing hold to the dismissal of that judgment: accepting Jesus the Christ as Lord and Savior. If we don’t take the first step, we find ourselves blundering through our lives as individuals and as a people.
To be continued …
UPDATE: The Scattered, Part Two
All Bible quotes are KJV.
In the Book of Jasher Chapter 7, the Jewish tradition teaches that Ham’s sin was stealing from Noah the skins God had clothed Adam and Eve with, and giving them to Cush, who gave them to Nimrod. https://www.psalm11918.org/References/Apocrypha/The-Book-of-Jasher/The-Book-of-Jasher-Chapter-07.html Apparently, the skins carried enough power to make him a mighty man—a tyrant—on the earth.
In Christ, however, there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, according to the Apostle Paul. It’s no stretch to say no black or white either. And certainly there is no curse or condemnation for those in the Messiah. What counts is faith acting in love.
Oh, how I wish we could sit and talk about this. I have so many scattered thoughts, I feel you could help hone them down to make sense. I'm thinking of how many Africans who are descendants of those who were scattered to the western world has so much different DNA in their genes, but are still scattered. But even those who are only of African native descent are still scattered from each other. Maybe I've been doing too much genealogy lately. But still you and I and those Christians around the world who would seem scattered, are really the same remnant that will remain. This is a lot to think about.