Who Told You Who You Are?
A young man stops on a city sidewalk. Men with a bullhorn and a King James Bible are shouting that the people passing by are the real Israel, that the curses of Deuteronomy describe the slave ships, and that Christians have lied to them. He laughs, and he stays. Later he looks up the verse, and there it is: with ships (Deuteronomy 28:68). Soon his cousin is sending him videos.
That is one face of this movement. There are others. Quiet congregations in Virginia keep the Sabbath and Passover. A village in the Negev raises vegan families. A rabbi in Chicago teaches Torah. All of them have been called Black Hebrew Israelites, and many of them reject the name, preferring Hebrew Israelites, Israelites, or Hebrews. Estimates of its size run from tens of thousands to more than a million, depending on who is counted, and it is not one thing.
Behind it lies a real grief. Slavery stole names, languages, and family records. A teacher who hands a Black man a lost family tree is offering him something the world took. So we want to hear that grief and answer the error, without mocking anyone.
We do not use the word cult for everyone under this name. It fits groups that keep Christian words, such as Jesus and the New Testament, and teach another gospel (Galatians 1:6) of race and law, as defined in What Is a Cult?. Congregations that have moved into Judaism are better weighed as in Judaism. In every case we judge teaching, not hearts. Labels do not save and they do not damn.
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For Deeper Study
- Urban Apologetics: Restoring Black Dignity with the GospelAmazon Eric Mason, ed.Black evangelical writers. Mason's own chapter is “Engaging Hebrew Israelites.” We differ with some contributors.
- Chosen People: The Rise of American Black Israelite ReligionsAmazon Jacob S. DormanAn academic history of the older congregations and their roots. Not written from a Christian point of view.
- Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with JudaismAmazon Yvonne Patricia Chireau and Nathaniel Deutsch, eds.Scholarly essays on how Black Americans have identified with Israel and Judaism. Not written from a Christian point of view.
- One Race One Blood: A Biblical Answer to RacismAmazon Ken Ham and A. Charles WareYoung earth creationists. Shows from Genesis and Acts 17:26 that there is one human race.
- A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity's Global IdentityAmazon Vince L. BantuAn evangelical scholar shows that Christianity was global from the start, in Africa and Asia as well as Europe. Academic in tone.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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What Is a Cult?
A cult, as this section uses the word, is a group that uses Christian words while denying the Gospel or the God it reveals, preaching another Jesus, another spirit, or another gospel.
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