New Documentary Charts Story of Church in Canada’s Black Communities

A new and unique documentary currently on tour in Canada is turning heads with its look at the history of black spirituality in history, the impact of the church in black communities and its relation to slavery and civil rights issues, typically regarded as American issues.

Philip Daniels, a documentary filmmaker with Travesty Productions in Toronto, said that he intended to fill this gap in the documentation of black history in his new documentary Seeking Salvation, which puts a particular focus on the role of the church in black Canadian communities throughout their history.

“As a filmmaker who is proud of my own African heritage, I was concerned about the absence of any kind of material or movies or really any kind of media about not only black history in Canada, but also black spiritual history in Canada,” said Daniels, who was raised a Roman Catholic.

“I really felt that this was a story that needed to be told, because the story of the black church has touched on so many aspects of Canadian history and how black communities developed.”

Seeking salvation documents the church’s sometimes troubled relationship with Canada’s black communities, being at times both a source of oppression and liberation. In New France black slaves were baptised by the very Catholic officials who simultaneously gave their tacit approval to the institution.

Segregation was also imposed on black Loyalists who came to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution, being forced to sit on separate pews from their white fellow churchgoers.

The church has, however, also been a source of liberation and salvation for many black Canadians, the religious revival called the “Great Awakening” which swept through Canada in the late 1700s inspiring many to work for and hope in freedom.

“I think that what wasn't accounted for was the true power of spirituality and the true power of not only the Christian message but of religion in a broad sense,” says Daniels. “I think by exposing people to that and by encouraging people to have a spiritual life, that can lead in sometimes fantastic directions that nobody can predict.”

One interviewee in the documentary, poet George Elliot Clarke, described the enormous importance of the church in his and other blacks’ lives, saying, “the church was our strength”.

According to Daniels, this is just one sign of how prominent a role the church has played in black culture – possibly even a much bigger role than it has played in white communities, ChristianWeek reported.

“I believe that the impact of the institution of the church within black communities across our country is probably deeper and its impact is probably a lot wider, and not only in a spiritual sense or in a religious sense,” he said.

“It has traditionally been involved in education and literacy efforts, and it has been an organising point for women in the community, who then are involved in all sorts of other social activities, which bring a church in contact with those spheres as well.

"So I think it certainly touches more spheres of more people's lives than in the general white community."

Seeking Salvation is currently on tour in theatres across Canada, including Montreal from 12 to 14 August and Nova Scotia from 26 August to 1 September. The film can also be downloaded, at a cost, from its website at www.seekingsalvation.ca/new/download.html.