Celebrating
our heritage, confronting our challenges…
In the recent
times, there has been a lot of interest in the Black race with people asking
questions on why the Black race appears to be without the grace and beauty that
other races have. Why does it seem that the Black race is “cursed”; political
unrest, economic problems, poverty, crime, poor health care, natural disasters
and the list goes on and on. Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo courageously attempts in
this book to deepen our understanding, unearthing questions and providing
answers to correct and heal past wounds.
This is a book
review of an extensive research work carried out by Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo
and published in 2007 by Destiny Image publishers INC. The book written in two
parts studied the black person in Australia – among the Aborigines, Africa,
Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, or North America, where we seem to belong
to the bottom of the pile economically, socially, physically, mentally etc.
The first part
of the book is titled ‘His glorious past,’ documenting carefully historically
and scientifically facts of the Black man’s past. This part was subdivided into
five chapters by the author: Man – a masterpiece of creation, the Black Man’s
dominion, the great empire builders, the great black personalities and the
wealthy continent. The book begins with a biblical account of how glorious mans
creation is, how as at the time of creation the life of God was imparted into
man, man was blessed and commanded to be fruitful and multiply, replenish the
earth, subdue it and have dominion (Gen
1:28). All humankind therefore appeared fully loaded.
The fall of man,
the scattering of all generations and the subsequent confusion of their
language introduced various cultures, traditions and confrontations.
Researching extensively the black man’s dominion, the author looks at the
biblical account of the dispersal of nations in Genesis 9 following it up with Genesis
10 where Nimrod who built the tower of Babel and much of Babylon was a
Cushite, an Ethiopian and a black person. He traces the Negroid and Mongoloid
races to Ham the son of Noah who is responsible for the Asian civilisation in
the Middle East, Africa, the Far East and the New World. These descendants of
Ham were shown to have been in unexpected ways the world’s greatest inventors.
They were great empire builders Mizram (Egypt) and Cush (Ethiopia). Pastor
Matthew Ashimolowo then proceeds further to mention great black personalities
with great research skill and careful documentation, providing for us an
insight into some significant role our ancestors played in scripture. He
mentions Nimrod, lady Keturah (a Cushite) of Genesis 25 the wife of Abraham after Sarah’s death. We also have
Ahmose the Black Egyptian who was the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph (Ex 1:8). Others are Zipporah the
Ethiopian who married Moses the prophet, Simon of Cyrene, a Black man from
Libya who helped carry the cross of Christ, Simeon the Niger and Lucius of
Cyrene prophets and teachers in the Church in Antioch (Acts 13:1 – 2).
Finally in part
one Pastor Ashimolowo describes the wealth of the continent, because of the
wealth of Africa it has been referred to as the “Golden Continent”. There are
records of the wealth of Egypt, Ethiopia, Timbuctu and South Africa from as far
back as 2000 B.C. to about A.D. 1500. He described Africa at its
best; before its fall and decline.
In part two of
this insightful book, Pastor Ashimolowo examines conformations and pathologies
with an attempt to explain why it seems the Black man is cursed. With each
pathology he provides scriptural basis for why the Black man needs to return to
his Maker so that time of refreshing could come upon him. He studies the things
that have shaped the Black man’s world and his increasing difficulty to break
out of the mould. He observes the influence of idolatry and the fact that the
first mention of it in the Bible is related to Nimrod a Cushite who led the
first revolt against God (Gen 10:8-10).
The result is disunity, civil war and unrest, colonization, perversion,
unemployment, oppression, defeat, desertification, beggar nations and the list
goes on. This is the first conformation.
The second is
superstition: a belief founded on irrational feelings especially of fear and
marked by credulity. This he writes is not limited to Blacks but is a major
influence in the decision-making process within their community.
The third
conformation he writes about is witchcraft, which is practiced in almost all
spheres of life in nations where it has been given prominence. This he observes
has shaped Black views to the point that there is a practice of inhumanity to
fellow humans with young boy soldiers describing how they tear out the heart of
their enemies and eat them because of the belief that this gives them more
boldness. He observed a deficiency in social and economic advancement among the
nations where witchcraft is given such prominence. These conformities lead to
various pathologies such as slavery, one of the greatest pathologies confronting
the people of colour. Other pathologies are the distorted family values,
economic challenges, faulted educational systems, segregation and a self-image
problem. Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo concludes this interesting, educative and
informative piece by providing a scriptural solution from Romans 12:2. He states categorically that “there is nothing wrong with being Black”. God created Blacks equal
to others but circumstances have perpetuated our existence. He however recommends
on the basis of the above scripture that transformation of the heart is the
only permanent way to take control or life and eternal destiny. He suggests
that God is waiting for every black man, woman and child to turn their hearts
towards Him, to praise Him for life – past, present and future – and for Jesus.
We should take pride in the fact that we truly built the first civilizations:
Africans, the Black Egyptians were proficient in Mathematics, Medicine,
Engineering and Agriculture. Black Arabs started algebra, conquered Spain and Portugal
and carried Mathematics into Europe. He finished this master piece with the
following encouraging prophecy “we have a
proud heritage; we can rise to that height again – with a proper respect for
God and each other.”
Oluwatosin
B. Adekeye
Health
Psychologist and Honorary Research Fellow
tosinadetunde2000@yahoo.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment