This book examines, in a scholarly manner, spiritualities of the African diaspora (people of African descent living throughout the world) and the impact that colonialism, race, and Black identity have had on this wide field. I’m sure it was designed for undergraduate courses in religion departments at universities, rather than the casual reader, but it belongs in every public library.
Mitchem begins by discussing deficiencies in earlier scholarship and understandings of Black people and their religious ideas and spiritual practices. For example, Greek myths are taught in every K-12 curriculum in the United States, and never as “weird religion,” Mitchem writes; in contrast, “Western writers have relied on African religious components to create images that are the stuff of nightmares — voodoo, zombies, mummies, and evil magicians. The composition of such figures betrays the legacy of racist stereotypes and depictions of Black people as depraved, animalistic, and barely human that informs them.”
Another redirection that she provides regards the scant attention paid to the ideas of African origin spiritualities. Mitchem quotes an expert saying that educators “direct no attention to the philosophy of the African … [who] have and always have had their own ideas about the nature of the universe, time, and space, about appearance and reality, and about freedom and necessity.”
Part of the problem, Mitchem emphasizes, is a Western presumption of what “religion” is and means. “African religions,” for instance, “are non-revealed and orally transmitted.”
One chapter gives attention to “Growing African Diasporan Religions,” which include The Moorish Science Temple, and The African Orthodox Church, the latter co-founded by Marcus Garvey. Both began in the early twentieth century. Another chapter focuses on “Afrikan Indigenous Religions,” which include Ba’Kongo, Ifa, and Vodun — and if these names are unfamiliar to you, I’m sure you are in wide company. There are several other chapters, as well, including one on “Vodou/Haiti and Lucumi/Cuba,” which should go a long way to correcting misconceptions about these African Diasporan Religions in the United States.
This is an important book designed to widen the lens of our understanding of Black religious and spiritual life.
