The catechism of Candace Owens
Getting to the roots of this week's Black-Jewish culture war
Candace Owens defied an attempted nuclear shaming this week when she dared to tell a rabbi “Your religion does not trump my religion”. Her debate with the perturbed Rabbi Barclay is a two-hour masterclass of Christian and Jewish interfaith dialogue. Now everybody is hash-tagging Christ is King. It should be obvious after this interview why the synagogues threw us out during the New Testament “Rabbi Wars” (John 16:1-4). Our origin story as Christians is rooted in the kind of argument we saw on Candace Owens’ podcast and the key question for the West now is: Christ is King… of what? It is the third week of Coptic Orthodox Lent, a week the Ethiopian tradition calls ‘Synagogue’, so it’s a good time to review Christianity’s relationship with synagogues, as we see another Candace influencing the destiny of civilization long after the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch on the road in Gaza (Book of Acts 8).
I talked about this in my blog on Kanye’s Death Con 3 because Candace Owens’ ancient namesake is so important in the history of Christianity. Queen Candace of the Ethiopians can be credited for the Gospel reaching the African Hebrews of the Nile region well before Rome formally adopted Christianity. Queen Candace was the first political figure with a diplomatic envoy to receive the Gospel, in Jerusalem, even as the Apostles were still debating in the synagogues as Hebrews. Essentially, the origins of something like “Christian Nationalism” as a concept begin with Candace of the Ethiopians. Her eunuch (often called Bachos) is known in tradition as an ‘Ethiopian Jew’ and is sometimes credited as being the same Simon Niger (yes, that niger) or ‘Simeon the Black’ from Acts Chapter 13. Regardless of which Niger he was, it is clear the Church tradition identifies him with Hebrews of the Nile.
Why isn’t any of this common knowledge in a Black America that was screaming Black Lives Matter in 2020?
Western ignorance of Afro-Christian history burnt down American cities and created a mind virus that spread across the world. BLM has been able to do what it did in 2020 because it satisfied the thirst for cult practice in a people that until now lack a central cult of worship. Black culture pushes the extremes of cult practice, and it has been pushed onto the entire planet. But unlike Saudi Arabians or Jerusalemites, this North American culture has no central point within itself to fix a cult of devotion for the ethnicity called Black. It is an MTV ethnicity. Much like the Rabbi’s definition of Antisemitism on Owens’ podcast, the cults of Black America are in constant mutation. BLM was one of these mutant cults and Candace Owens has spent several years trying to fight the effects of it in the Black population of the U.S. But how do you fight the effects of a cult? The only way the West will wake from the fugue state of heresies like ‘Black Lives Matter’ is the cold water of Apostolic reality – which begins with an African Jewish baptism on the road to Gaza.
The West was fed Michael Jackson Afrocentrism for far too long. The effects have been catastrophic for the Anglophone World. We were never told about the Coptic influence over world history in school. Unlike Nina Simone, who was received into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in baptism, the “King of Pop” never seemed to look at the ancient Egyptians deeply enough to focus on the Christianity they adopted and developed but projected Black American imagination into the guise of a Pharaonic Egyptian identity. This theme has continued, including Netflix’s maligned “Black Cleopatra” documentary that triggered the Egyptian government to sue for the blackwashing of their (Greek) Ptolemaic icon and to formally denounce American Afrocentrism as a plague on Egypt. The Afrocentric narratives of American pop culture are like tares amongst the wheat of Christendom. They only grow because they look like the real thing. And the American Empire is living in a racialist field because of them. Which means the rest of us are, too. Black Jewish relations as demonstrated in the Owens’ interview seem to be stuck at the frequency of constant references to the American civil rights struggle and the Jewish Holocaust in Europe. Other times it is Black Hebrew Identity and Jewish-American influence over Black artists trapped in loops, including Kanye saying, “We Jew also” and then declaring prayer won’t help the Black abortion crisis or prison rates. Lord Have Mercy. Un-catechized Black America is steering American pop culture (and global pop culture) for better or worse. This tethers the entirety of Western Civilization to Black American heresies.
Heresies have consequences. We’re living in a civilization that understands this when they are “political heresies” (like racism) but not theological ones. Christian Nationalism is an idea which has been labelled a sort of political heresy in the West. It is anathema to say you are a Nationalist at all these days, as Candance Owens found out after the media tried to smear her for talking about it. Christian Nationalism as a concept has been buried and gatekept from popular attention, but whenever it is presented from the fringes it looks like the pseudo-politics of a motley crew of tech nerds, “Nazis”, Fascists and die hard MAGA supporters and all the other boogeymen of the internet. Outside of this, nothing about Christian Nationalism looks appealing to somebody desiring a beautiful culture. Why? There is no central cult of devotion in it. Christian Nationalism currently lacks cult definition. This is remarkably like the state of Black America. And people that lack a proper definition of cult of devotion can be mutated quickly.
The mutant cultural virus of BLM emerged in 2020 like a global doomsday cult. I had many friends (including Catholic and Orthodox Christians) posting that Black Square on their social media in 2020. BLM was Kool-Aid for colored people and Candace Owens has generated her infamous career opposing the BLM lies that bewitched American Blacks into setting American cities on fire. Heresies have consequences. The culture of the New World does not think in terms of heresy and dogma, even though we are all living in a civilization that grew out of debates over holy things. Rabbi Barclay came to discuss Candace Owens’ statements, investigate her dogmatically, and to test her willingness to agree to his definitions of holy. It backfired. Questioning the faith of a person rooted in theology and not memes was a bad idea. Christians have defined Holy and Un-Holy for 2000 years. What can we do as Christians if we are told that we must abandon our holy tradition to satisfy people who believe in the supremacy of their own tradition of biblical interpretation? Candace rejected the claim that Christians should apologize for thinking in the terms of the Early Church, that is: to see the world through the lens of the Apostles. She’s demonstrated what Black America can become when it directs its devotion towards the saints who set the standard of holiness for Christendom.
It wasn’t race that got the early Church yeeted from the synagogues. It was the Apostles’ interpretation of Scripture that declared Christ fulfills it all. The Church was called out to become Israelites of the Promise under New Covenant. Judaic interpretation of scripture is exactly that: interpretation. Christians are heirs of the Hebrews and we also hold the ancient interpretation of the Early Church. Many have been shamed out of doing exactly what the Ethiopian Jew did in the Book of Acts, when he acknowledged Philip’s authority to interpret Messianic prophecy and baptize him. It is unnecessary for Christians to apologize for accepting Christ’s unique claim to being the only access door mankind has to God the Father. “I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). The Ethiopian asked Philip to assist him to interpret the Prophet Isaiah – in deference to Philip’s authority – and this is why Africa received the Gospel before most of Western Europe. This is established Orthodox Christian history. Cults like Black Lives Matter would not take root if Black America was rooted in African Christendom instead of a mutant pop culture.
Antisemitism is click-bait and this word is losing its savor over the imagination of the media as people like Rabbi Barclay admit antisemitism has a definition that “mutates”. This is the very reason for the Apostolic Church authority and dogma: ancient Orthodox teaching was first reasoned by the Christians of the Nile to oppose mutating definitions of Christ, specifically to preserve the Faith handed down to us by the Hebrew Apostles. Most people living in the West have never faced the Christian cultures of the Nile region, where ancient Judeo-Christian tradition has been preserved by Christian Hebrews who kept to the interpretation of the Apostles and retained their heritage as African Israelites. This isn’t the heresy of a racist cult in Baltimore. Afro-Semitic Christianity is alive and singing liturgies to the Pride of Judah. The African example to the world is clear: until the religious cult is established and defined, a culture will mutate to find one. Candace Owens has declared hers unapologetically. It isn’t race. It’s Christ.
Mutatis mutundis: Black Catechism is the only way to a holy Western Civilization. You may disagree. But your religion does not trump our religion.
"The African example to the world is clear: until the religious cult is established and defined, a culture will mutate to find one. "
Amen. The human soul, much like nature, abhors a void.
So glad I found you on Substack!