Canaan land is the land for me,
And let God's saints come in.
There was a wicked man,
He kept them children in Egypt land.
Canaan land is the land for me,
And let God's saints come in.
God did say to Moses one day,
Say, Moses, go to Egypt land,
And tell him to let my people go.
Canaan land is the land for me,
And let God's saints come in.
Slave spiritual

IN THE ENCOUNTER WITH European Christianity in its Prot-
estant form in North America, enslaved Africans and their descen-
dants were exposed to something new: a fully articulated ritual
relationship with the Supreme Being, who was pictured in the
book that the Christians called the Bible not just as the Creator
and Ruler of the Cosmos, but as the God of History, a God who
lifted up and cast down nations and peoples, a God whose sover-
eign will was directing all things toward an ultimate end, drawing
good out of evil. As they reflected upon the evil that had befallen
them and their parents, they increasingly turned to the language,
symbols, and world view of the Christian Holy Book. There they
found a theology of history that helped them to make sense out of

-17-