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Study guide · Race, Faith & Identity

Is Christianity an African Faith?

Reviewed by Jude 3 Project·2 min read

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A standalone study on recovering the African heritage and vocabulary of the gospel.

The big question

Many people, inside and outside the church, assume Christianity is a European religion that arrived in Africa on colonial ships. Dr. Vince Bantu, a scholar of African and Coptic Christianity, tells a deeper story. The faith was spoken in African words from the beginning, and following Jesus has carried African believers deeper into their identity, not out of it. This study recovers that heritage.

Key takeaways

  • African Christians had their own words for the faith, like the Ethiopian bisrat (gospel) and the Egyptian ipa (church).
  • Many common Christian words have European pagan roots; African terms are just as worthy of use.
  • Egyptians turned former temples into churches, as at the Temple of Philae.
  • Jesus was a brown-skinned Jew under Roman colonialism, not a European.
  • Coming to Christ deepens African identity rather than erasing it.

Scripture to sit with

Song of Songs 1:5. I am dark and lovely. Scripture itself affirms black beauty in an ancient world that often did not.

Acts 8:26-39. The Ethiopian official believes and is baptized. Africa is in the church’s story from Acts onward.

Psalm 87:4. God names Egypt and Cush among those who know him. The nations of Africa are written into Scripture.

Revelation 7:9. Every nation, tribe, and tongue before the throne. The kingdom keeps, not erases, our cultures.

Quotes worth discussing

Bantu says, “Bisra is an ancient Ethiopian word that means gospel… and the gospel embraces all cultures and prizes or favors none over the other.”

On Jesus, Bantu says he was “a brown-skinned, Aramaic speaking Palestinian Jew who lived under white Roman colonialism.”

Discussion questions

  • Did you grow up thinking of Christianity as a European or an African faith? Why?
  • How does it strike you that words like God and heaven have pagan European roots?
  • What would it look like to honor African Christian heritage in your worship?
  • Have you ever felt you had to leave your culture behind to follow Jesus?
  • How does Revelation 7:9 reframe the relationship between faith and culture?

Go deeper

This study comes from the Jude 3 Project’s Understanding Kemeticism course with Dr. Vince Bantu. For a related conversation, see the Jude 3 work on whether Christianity is the white man’s religion.

A closing reflection

This week, learn one piece of African Christian history you did not know, the Ethiopian church, the Coptic church, an early African believer. Let it sink in that the faith you hold has always had an African home, and that Jesus is not asking you to leave your people to follow him.

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