Henry Imler October 15th, 2006

The first half of the book, Conjuring Culture is an odd read. I do not mean this in a negative way, but just to say the ideas and concepts are quite foreign to the world I have known. The religious culture of Black Americans is extremely creative. The way in which the base religions fused and reacted with the Christianity that they were exposed to, presumably after their enslavement is very intriguing. I believe it parallels with the experience of the Mexican Indians and Catholicism. However, I gather from the author that the use of “conjure theology” is unique to the African, and consequently the black American religious experience. The way that native-African religious ideas were reinterpreted as biblical types is intriguing.

The idea of typology to reinterpret biblical events as a prophecy of the black American events is very creative. It not only was used to give hope and strength to the religious members, but also to invoke the action of the deity to make the prophecy come to pass in their lives. The best examples of this are Exodus, Ethiopian, Moses, and Egyptian themes. These strategies of inducement served not only to give the people a sense of purpose, but to also speak to speak these things into existence. Another function was to tie together the people of the group and to craft an identity for them. It is noted in the reading that the very action of creating an idea of god is to create oneself in relation to it. Likewise, when a group creates an idea of god, they create an identity of the group in relation to that god. This is one of the ideas behind the usage of Psalm 68:31: “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God” (KJV).

The use of Psalm 68:31 was incredible powerful and diverse. There was a linking together of biblical themes to match their situation. The God of the Ethiopians would lead his people out of Slavery (Egypt) just like the God of the Hebrews did. Egypt was not only used as a symbol of slavery, but also of the destiny that there would be black princes. This pointed to the royal nature of the people and back, along with the Ethiopian kingdom, to the days of the two great black kingdoms.
It is very interesting to see how the religious culture of black Americans synthesized the religions and cultures of Europe and Africa into a synthesis that used to not only give them strength and comfort in their circumstances, but to also conjure up a betterment of their situations. It seems bizarre at first to imagine Moses as a conjure man that leaned secret words from God to recreate reality. But when viewed in the larger framework that Smith presents it begins to fit in naturally. The themes were constantly being reinvented to adapt to the current situation. It is hard to grasp at some of the concepts found in the reading, but with the repetitive frame work in which Smith reveals his theory aids in grasping the concepts presented.

• Christianity , Religion
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