Breaking the chains of colonial Christianity : origins and purposes of weaponized Chrisitianity in postcolonial literature

Abstract

In this thesis, I examine how weaponized colonial Christianity was the most effective means of Black subordination, and I assert that weaponized colonial Christianity gave license to Europeans to chronologically invade African geographies, commodify and objectify African bodies and negate African identity. Weaponized Christianity fostered anti-Blackness. Through textual analysis of selected colonial/postcolonial, I explored Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel, Purple Hibiscus; Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin; Olaudah Equiano's autobiography, The Interesting Narrative Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself; Richard Wright's novel, Uncle Tom's Children; and Alice Walker's novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland through a post-colonial lens of oppression and present European weaponization of Biblical ideologies as the underpinning of historical and contemporary Black oppression, as such ideologies were/are reinforced by majoritarian institutions and performative practices that created a global problematized social hierarchy that became more intractable as it persisted.