All This Sainted Difference

Educating ourselves about the Black Atlantic religions – our “All This Sainted Difference” Series

“All this sainted difference is what God wants.”

Robert Farris Thompson wrote those words in reference to the Black Atlantic religions that he lovingly documented over the course of more than 60 years of teaching and writing. 

The rituals and practices he studied—Vodou, Santeria, Palo Monte, Abakua, Candomble, Umbanda and their antecedents throughout West and Central Africa—were means of preserving the dignity and humanity of communities that were shaped in the cauldron of enslavement and colonialism. Yet, out of ignorance, and the fear and prejudice fostered by White Supremacy culture,  Protestant Christians have been some of the most uninformed and fiercest opponents of Black Atlantic religious expression.

At The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme we want to change that. 

Building on our long tradition of educating ourselves about religious racism, bridging religious divides, and embracing different faith traditions, we hosted a series of speakers via Zoom to help us learn more about those traditions that too often continue to be misunderstood and mistreated by outsiders. This educational series is still available online for you to watch on YouTube.

“All the Sainted Difference” Videos

Part 1

Featured Speakers: Professor Elizabeth McAlister & Vodou Houngan Jean-Daniel Lafontant

Learn about Haitian Vodou and the life of a specific Vodou Temple in Port-au-Prince, Temple Nah-Ri-Veh, in this conversation with Professor Elizabeth McAlister from Wesleyan University, author of Rara: Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora, and Jean-Daniel Lafontant, a Vodou Houngan (Priest) who guides the Nah-Ri-Veh community and is much in demand as a lecturer for museums and universities that are exploring the sacred arts of Haitian Vodou. Both are sources of profound wisdom about Haitian history and its religious practices.

Watch on YouTube

Part 2

Featured Speaker: Dr. Ivor Miller

Enjoy this presentation from Dr. Ivor Miller, a renowned scholar of the rituals and traditions of the African diaspora. Ivor has done years of research into the secret world of Cuban Abakua, a New World tradition that is practiced mostly in Havana and Matanzas, but that has roots in Southern Nigeria and Cameroon. 

Ivor is the author of several books, among them The Voice of the Leopard, about Abakua and its African cousins, and Aerosol Kingdom, about early graffiti artists in New York City. He is on the faculty of the University of Calabar in Nigeria.

Watch on YouTube

Part 3

Featured Speaker: Professor Todd Ramón Ochoa

An opportunity to learn from Todd Ramon Ochoa, an expert on Palo Monte, a faith practice with roots in ancient Kongo. Of all the African cultures that contributed to the creation of New World traditions, Kongo is the deepest and most pervasive, the ground upon which many of the new Atlantic faiths were established.

Todd Ochoa has written beautifully about this tradition in his book Society of the Dead: Quita Manaquita and Palo Praise in Cuba. He has spent years learning its language and rituals, and he has undergone an initiation into its sacred mysteries. Ochoa is also the author of A Party for Lazarus: Six Generations of Ancestral Devotion in a Cuban Town, which touches on related Black Atlantic practices, Santeria and Arara.

Watch on YouTube

Part 4: Part 1

Featured Speaker: Professor John Mason ​

Exploring Yoruba culture, which originated in Nigeria and, through the violence of the slave trade, was exported to the Americas. The Yoruba people grew deep roots in two places in particular: Brazil (where it is known as Candomble) and Cuba (where it is known as Lukumi, or Santeria). 

Mason is regarded around the world as a thought leader on Yoruba culture and practices. He is a priest in the Yoruba tradition, and he has authored more than 12 books, each containing histories, stories, songs, rituals, and traditional meals that he has collected across decades of study. Mason is a frequent lecturer at universities around the world, but he resides in Brooklyn, where he founded and continues to run the Yoruba Theological Archministry.

Watch on YouTube

Part 4: Part 2

Watch on YouTube