Christian Humanism in the Black Atlantic: The Case of Olaudah Equiano

Abstract

This article explores Olaudah Equiano as a pivotal figure in the emergence of a Christian humanism forged within the Black Atlantic. Building on the analyses of Sylvia Wynter and Paul Gilroy, it examines how Equiano's The Interesting Narrative contests the racial figuration of the human that underwrote the development of racial capitalism and modern colonialism. Rather than assimilating into Enlightenment categories of the human, Equiano reconfigures both his Igbo inheritance and European humanist traditions in the light of Christ. His narrative is read as a piece of constructive theology that simultaneously deconstructs dominant conceptions of the human and offers an alternative, Christologically grounded vision of personhood. This vision is shown to be ‘conjured’ up from what is identified as a distinctive, Black Atlantic way of reading Scripture. By situating Equiano within wider currents of abolitionist politics, republican critiques of empire, and the emergence of a creolized Christianity, the essay argues that he articulates a specific political theology: a democratic, abolitionist Christian humanism attentive to how human flourishing requires both certain structural conditions and formation in virtue. In so doing, Equiano not only anticipates later Black Atlantic thought but provides theological resources to confront contemporary ethno‐religious nationalism and civilisational chauvinism.