How Do I Relate My Faith In Good God With All The Suffering In The World?

Both free and enslaved Africans were discriminated against in this time period but responded differently towards their challenges. African Americans found ways to cope with their situation one being religious gatherings (Doc D). They sang old traditional African songs and danced. By doing so, they can forget about life troubles for a moment and give themselves a sense of hope that someday they would by free. Some slaves where more violent than other and began rebellions against their white owners. The use of rebellion was inspired to them by the Bible and that God was pleading for their cause with earnestness and zeal (Doc G). Slaves who caused mischief was relocated deeper south where the treatment and condition was even worse. The Fugitive Slave Law forced the North to send back any slaves who escaped to the North in return for a reward. Slaves who tried to escape to the North were also relocated. By relocating them, the chances of escape decreased for them. Even

This leads to a major issue within the slave community. Slaves possess little knowledge of life outside the plantation or house in which they are working at. This means they have no idea how humans are supposed to be treated, and rather that a “god” would never allow for another to be beaten in such severity. This is an advantage that the slave owners held over the actual slaves. If the slaves were to gain an understanding of the world around them, the “religious” quotes recited by slave owners would quickly lose their worth and soon mean nothing as well as hold no influence over the slaves. Frederick Douglas was fortunate enough to understand this, and even addressed the issue in his life story, “What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference- so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked(71).” Douglas understands that the Christianity practiced by the slave owners was far different from the Christianity intended by Jesus Christ. As Douglas referred to it, the “Slaveholding religion” was prominent throughout the slavery era, not only was this damaging for the slaves,

During a most dark and dismal time in our nations history, we find that the Africans who endured horrible circumstances during slavery, found ways of peace and hope in their religious beliefs. During slavery, African's where able to survive unbearable conditions by focusing on their spirituality.

Both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs had similar experiences in regards to their owners getting more involved with religion resulting in a change in the treatment of their slaves. Frederick Douglass’ slave-owner in 1832 was a man called “Captain Auld” by his slaves. Douglass describes him as a “slaveholder without the ability to hold slaves”. However, after attending a Methodist camp-meeting and experiencing religion, Auld becomes crueler. Douglass had the slightest hope that Auld’s involvement with religion would incline him to emancipate his slaves or—at the very least—be more humane and kind. Douglass was disappointed. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” The man became more involved in religious activity; it became a part of his everyday life. Douglass provides an example of his master’s usage of religious sanction for cruelty and brutality. Douglass witnesses Auld tie up and whip a young woman while justifying his actions with a passage of Scripture— “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” Harriet Jacobs had a comparable experience. “When I was told that Dr. Flint had joined the Episcopal church, I was much surprised. I supposed that religion had a purifying effect on the character of men; but the worst persecutions I endured from him were after he

For almost eight decades, enslaved African-Americans living in the Antebellum South, achieved their freedom in various ways—one being religion—before the demise of the institution of slavery. It was “freedom, rather than slavery, [that] proved the greatest force for conversion among African Americans in the South” (94). Starting with the Great Awakening and continuing long after the abolition of slavery, after decades of debate, scholars conceptualized the importance of religion for enslaved African-Americans as a means of escaping the brutalities of daily life. Overall, Christianity helped enslaved African American resist the degradation

Slave owners used Christianity as an excuse for the awful ways they treated their slaves. Christianity played a major role on the increase of brutality and violence that spirited the slave owners. The scriptures in the Bible were twisted in the eyes of slave owners to how they wanted to interpret them. Douglass had a powerful experience with one of his masters, Thomas Auld. Mr. Auld was not a religious person and treated the slaves very poorly. In August 1832, Auld attended a Methodist camp meeting and that marked the day when he became religious, and suddenly even more cruel. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” After becoming religious, Auld uses scripture to justify his cruelty. Douglass thought that with discovering religion and using it, Auld would become more polite as how Douglass viewed Christianity. Unfortunately that was not the case. Auld justifies that being affiliated with religion would not change a person for the better. Being a slave, Douglass found that slave owners found religious sanction for their cruelty. “He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.", was what a slave owner had said to justify why he beat

Christianity was new to most slaves who had been abducted from their native country and taken to the Americas. Some were hesitant to abandon their old traditions for the Christ their white captors taught of, but after several generations of slavery, most black slaves had succumbed to relentless preaching. However, the Christianity that took hold within the slave community was often interpreted differently, conveying different messages to pockets of slave population. The use of Christianity in slavery was a double edged sword, creating not only a tool for control, but a weapon of discontent in slave communities. Examining the works of Richard Allen and the stories of Nat Turner, create a narrative of how Christianity was applied differently to slaves.

Christianity provided African American slaves with hope, because although they were suffering as merely human instruments of work, God was watching them and all of theirs suffering would be rewarded by him. “Slavery, with all its

How did slavery continue to exist despite its inhumane practices? Many of these owners employed the ideas of dehumanizing slaves and religion in order to perpetuate their actions. Dehumanization demoted the societal status of slaves, therefore deeming blacks inferior to their white counterparts. Moreover, although directly opposing religious principles of kindness and avoidance of sin, plantation owners used Christianity as a mechanism to mask their inhumanity and encourage their cruelty toward slaves. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass develops themes of dehumanization and religion, which helps readers understand the techniques slave owners utilized to alleviate their guilt, condone malice toward slaves, and preserve supremacy over colored people in Southern society.

Long before their contact with whites, Africans were a strongly religious, and deeply spiritual people. During the early history of slavery, the African American spirituality was often seen by whites as a pagan faith. These rituals and dogmas were seen by whites as Voodoo, Hoodoo, Witchcraft, and superstitions. They often commented on these "pagan practices," and fetishes, and were threatened by them. As a result, great effort was put on eradicating these practices, and many were lost within a generation.# Although tremendous efforts was placed on eradicating the “superstitious” religious beliefs of the African slaves, they were not immediately introduced to the religion of white slave masters, Christianity. Many planters resisted the idea of converting slaves to Christianity out of a fear that baptism would change a slave's legal status. The black population was generally untouched by Christianity until the religious revivals of the 1730s and 1740s. The Bible was manipulated to support the institution of slavery and its inhumane practices. Christianity was used to suppress and conform slaves. Slaveholders, priests, and those tied to the Church undermined the beliefs of the millions of African-Americans converts.# White Christianity was used to justify the enslavement of blacks. By the early nineteenth century, slaveholders had adopted the view that Christianity would make slaves more submissive and orderly.

God has a plan for all of us. The power of prayer is amazing. I now have a much better understanding of heaven. Don Piper is a living example of a miracle. He was not supposed to live, but he did. I believe that God has a plan for all of us. For some unexplainable reason on that cold winter morning, Don Piper decided to take a different route to work. For some reason, he decided to put his seat belt on when he rarely wore it. For some reason, Dick Onerecker had the gut feeling that he needed to randomly pray for a man he did not know. These incidents are all an examples of God’s plan. There is only one possible explanation why these incidents happened and why they happened in the way that they did. The answer is it is all part of God’s plan. One must believe that all of this was part of God’s plan. There is an old saying that I now disagree with, “good things happen to good people.” Yes, I think that this is true for instance; a person who helps everyone and puts others first is going to have people put them first. This is like the golden rule. My grandma always preaches to me that what you give to the Lord you will get back ten fold. The part I disagree with is that bad things happen to good people. Example: Don Piper was a minister and a great father, but yet he was still hospitalised for an entire year and endured more pain than anyone should ever have to handle. This is

It is also the same argument people have for whatever trials and tribulations life brings someone. Why would God do this to happen to me? I have heard this question, or something like it, more times than I can remember. I don’t think that it is God doing these things as much as He is letting them happen. He does this in order for people to use them as learning experiences and to grow. This gives us the inner strength to overcome whatever comes along and to help others that are less fortunate so that they can also survive.

Disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes,wildfires,sicknesses, and diseases are all examples of natural evil in the world. Romans 8:22 KJV “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now”

All of the living things have to be set by all of evils thing in the world: sickness, agony, happiness, suffering the live and death. God creates incredible things and leaves all of them for human to freely use as they want. However, the more they have the more temptation they get. That’s why there are a lot of questionable about a creator, God based on all of these kinds of events happened. Is this belief in a benevolent God not at least paradoxical in the face of such events? If God is benevolent, He would surely not want people and other living things to suffer. If God is omniscient, He surely knows when people and other living things are suffering. If God is omnipotent, surely God could prevent any

Suffering and tragic accidents happen because they are a test or come as a result of one’s sins. “Have the people thought that they would be left to say “We Believe” without them being tested?” (Quran 29:2). “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God 's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us,” (Bible, Romans 5:3-5).