The concept of the "Divine African Market" encompasses a multifaceted approach to economic empowerment rooted in historical precedents, cultural preservation, and spiritual principles. This exploration delves into the historical context, contemporary initiatives, and the theological underpinnings that contribute to this unique economic model.
Historical Context: Echoes of the Past
The first quarter of the 21st century mirrors the first quarter of the 20th century in certain aspects. Both periods witnessed global health crises and subsequent economic downturns, leaving many without the means to provide for their basic needs. During the Great Depression, faith-based organizations stepped in to address the food needs of their communities.
Reverend Major J. Divine, known as Father Divine, established the Peace Mission Movement in the early 1900s. This interracial ministry, based in New York City and later relocated to Philadelphia, gained popularity during the Great Depression due to its cooperative economic system. The movement owned farms in upstate New York, transporting produce to the city and selling it at below-market rates in their stores. They also prepared food for their daily banquets, which they considered Holy Communion services.
For Father Divine, these extravagant feasts demonstrated God's power to provide for fundamental needs during economic instability. Members were encouraged to pool resources and start co-ops, echoing the Pentecostal experience of Acts chapter 2. They established and operated hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, and other businesses.
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Contemporary Initiatives: The Black Church Food Security Network
The spirit of the Peace Mission Movement inspired the Black Church Food Security Network, established in 2015. Launched during the Baltimore Uprising after Freddie Gray's death, this network strategically connects Black Churches and Black Farmers to create a Black-led food system rooted in justice and communal self-determination.
The network helps congregations start gardens on their land and organizes miniature farmers markets inside churches on worship days, featuring Black farmers and food business owners. This approach centers the African American community, which is disproportionately impacted by health, nutrition, food policy, and racism.
The Black Church Food Security Network is anchored in the Black Church tradition, the oldest constellation of Black-led institutions in the country, providing spiritual, economic, and political autonomy. Black churches and Christian denominations collectively own the most land in Black America, along with commercial kitchens, passenger vans, classrooms, and multimedia equipment, often underutilized.
The Black Church Food Security Network helps congregations organize these assets cooperatively to transform the lived experience of African Americans and create a more just society. This initiative is not a food charity but a tool toward a greater end, mirroring the Peace Mission Movement's approach.
The African Predicament and Economic Enslavement
The African predicament is a concept that explains the aggregate of plights that threaten the African people. It is a holistic view that can be viewed through various lenses depending on the approach that scholars decide to begin their debate and examines obstacles hindering wholesome prosperity, internal peace, and basic freedom. One of the most evident precarious situations of the African people is an imperial-centered economics, where Africa is given little or no freedom to take its own destiny necessary for economic prosperity into its own power.
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Even under conditions where it appears to have economic policies, most of such policies are directed towards the prosperity of other continents, particularly Europe and America. Against this backdrop, the black race is miseducated into believing that the workability of an African centred economics using the African banking system is not feasible, even when such a system has proven to produce the best possible outcomes when properly utilized.
The lack of vision and creativity on the part of African leaders, coupled with the fact that their bellies have become their gods, make it impossible to take initiative to open local markets to engage in transnational trade among fellow African nations. All these set the foundation for various economic Structural Adjustment Programmes that created room for a fixed economy instead of a free one.
Theological Underpinnings: Money, Incarnation, and God's Economy
The intersection of money and theology provides a foundation for understanding the Divine African Market. Money serves as a sign and representation of sovereign power, aiding in the governance of subjects. Analyzing money requires consideration of relations of authority and hierarchy.
The concept of a monetary incarnation, where a distant sovereign power is made present by its image of value, parallels the incarnation of the Son of God. This materialized representative of sovereignty becomes a central object of desire, imports a specific value-laden codification of reality, and shapes relations and communities by its standards.
In Christian discourse, money and value are operative, with ascriptions of worth and treasure to Christ. This understanding reconstructs God as an economic administrator and Christ as God's currency, influencing theological discourse and shaping the economic sphere.
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Divine Chocolate: A Case Study in Fairtrade and Ethical Sourcing
Divine Chocolate, a UK Fairtrade candy company, exemplifies ethical sourcing and economic empowerment within the African context. The company is 44% owned by Ghanaian Fairtrade-certified farmers organization Kuapa Kokoo. Divine Chocolate works with Kuapa Kokoo's 85,000 farmers. Kuapa Kokoo recently gave Divine permission to purchase cocoa from a cooperative in Uganda, so Tranchell is hopeful the part-owners will be open to deals with cooperatives in other African origins.
Divine Chocolate hopes to grow in mainland Europe's leading retailers and is considering expanding its cocoa sourcing to create a single-origin range. The premium chocolate firm has also bolstered support for cocoa farmers by funding a drying station in Uganda.
The company is exploring working with new cocoa farmers in African nations outside Ghana to create a single-origin chocolate range. Togo, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, São Tomé, Madagascar, and Côte D'Ivoire are possible options, but no decisions have yet been taken. Divine may choose to blend cocoa from these origins or introduce single-origin chocolates.
The company established a US subsidiary in 2007 and in late 2014 secured listings at supermarket chains Kroger, Meijer, Roundy’s and Ahold. Divine's US sales team is also selling into Canada.
The Divine boss added her company's products were selling well in UK high-end supermarket Waitrose. The firm has UK listings for some products in Tesco, and would like to grow further in mainstream retail.
In Ghana, Kuapa Kokoo farmers individually dry their cocoa, but in Uganda, Divine has funded a drying station that the farmers jointly own. Divine has been running pilots to help fund crops that are complementary to cocoa.
The farmers are saying they think bananas are not bad. But Divine’s trials are ongoing.
African Religious-Cultural Systems and Ceramic Vessels
African and African-Pan-American religious-cultural systems utilize an array of ceramic vessels and objects. Special pots are understood to literally house divinity and are receptacles for detailed and painstaking spiritual offerings. Within these cultures, special pots are understood to literally house divinity and are receptacles for detailed and painstaking spiritual offerings.
Throughout the Americas, wherever African culture took root, certain neo-African or African-Atlantic religions came into being. A hybridized form of religion and cultural practice was created, particularly in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, but also in a few North American locations such as southern Louisiana and the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. In most instances a core of west and central African cosmology was augmented and embellished by, if not merged with, Catholicism.
It should be reiterated in no uncertain terms that these religions are distinct and independent from one another, and any shared characteristics must be understood to be general in nature. However, in all these faiths crafted objects play an indispensable role, as important as song, rhythm, and dance.
Vessels in general, and clay pots specifically, are utilized in a way that can be confusing to a cultural outsider. Kept within an open or lidded clay pot, metal cauldron, or wooden jar are sacred materials: plant, animal, and statuary considered to be appealing to, emblematic of, and nourishing for a specific divine entity. The vessel is a temporary abode for a spirit, or more accurately, for a small facet of an unfathomably vast spiritual essence.
