In Response To Jared Ball’s Position of Religion in Liberation Movements in Light of Nkrumah’s Consciencism.

It’s been about two years since the interview I was invited on Earn Your Liberation with Dr. Jared “the Descender” Ball, Diallo Kenyata and Geechee Yaw that I have posted above took place. SInce then, I’ve had some time to reflect on an attempted sabotage by three pro-Marxist, Pan Africanists who invited me to a conversation not to understand a perspective, but to dismantle the foundation of the Messianic Conscious movement for redemption of which I am a part. What was presented to me as dialogue felt more like an ideological assault; it was not a conversation seeking truth but an effort to silence the spiritual dimension of liberation. I remember sitting there fully aware that the clash was not about politics alone but about the soul of revolution itself.

One of the biggest points of contention that has continued to resonate in my memory is that matter of religion and revolution that I brought to the table referencing a book by former Ghanian President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (peace be upon him) entitled Consciencism. In his book he writes,

The African revolution must be armed with an ideology which draws its strength from the triple heritage of the African people.”

He explains that this heritage, traditional African humanism, Islam, and Christianity, forms the moral and cultural foundation of Africa’s liberation. Nkrumah insists that

…spirituality is not a distraction from revolution but its moral compass.

Dr. Nkrumah clearly saw that without the ethical and spiritual consciousness of the people, revolution becomes imitation of foreign systems and loses its integrity. For him, the spiritual life of Africa, intrinsically related to its people, is the source of unity and moral direction, not superstition or dogma.

During the interview, I also alluded to Dr James Cone most quoted book, A Black Theology of Liberation. In it he declares,

There can be no Christian theology that is not identified unreservedly with those who are humiliated and abused. Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology.”

Cone’s words reveal that faith divorced from the struggle for justice is empty. He brings his point home when he goes on to teach that

…freedom must be actualized in history by oppressed peoples who accept the intellectual challenge to analyze the world for the purpose of changing it.

For Cone, spiritual consciousness is the divine spark that awakens the oppressed to their dignity and power. Liberation is not just something that is merely political, it is, through and through, entirely sacred.

Both Nkrumah and Cone affirm that revolution without spiritual grounding ultimately will collapse into confusion. It is in this light that the awareness of Heaven’s Presence on Earth joined with boundary keeping produces sustained honor; group-centered leadership integrity coupled with holy restraint produces national stability; discernment informing distinction produces holiness, something that elevates a people beyond the animalistic and even secular humanistic tendencies that time and time again lead a people into de-evolution. These principles are not simply religious slogans but moral laws, and social behavioral modification strategies that protect the revolution from corruption and chaos. These Universal dynamics remind us that liberation must be guided by truth and disciplined by righteousness.

So when Marxist voices say that religion has no place in revolution, they ignore the wisdom of those who understood that spirituality is not an enemy of liberation but, in fact it is its cultural heartbeat. Nkrumah’s Consciencism and Cone’s Liberation Theology both reveal that the spiritual life of a people is the force that shapes identity, strengthens resolve, and gives the revolution its moral center. The Messianic Conscious movement stands on that truth, affirming that revolution without spiritual grounding becomes directionless, and spirituality without revolutionary purpose becomes passive. Together, however, they create a people who can rise with purpose, endure with strength and overcome with dignity in unified consciousness.

Selah…