The question,
As an African descendant of enslaved people, why do you embrace a religion whose adherents were responsible for the enslavement of your ancestors in the past?

I get this question as a dessert during an interview conversation. My interviewer hesitates to ask this last question. I am given the question with the request to take the freedom and space to answer it or not. My interviewer did not know that I am not a descendant of enslaved people. But for the fact that I am an African was enough to take the question.
I say, I would rather eat the fire than not answer the question.

My Answer –
The Christian religion is not the religion of slave traders and slave owners and economic exploiters.

Archfather Jacob
Historically, Africa has played an important and sometimes saving role in the lives of the ancestors of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, at least from Archfather Jacob and his twelve children. The book of Genesis chapters 46 to 50 tell the story of how Jacob migrated to Egypt with his children to escape famine. There, after a few hundred years, his family grew into a people of God. Joseph made all the Egyptians Pharaoh’s slaves except Jacob’s descendants. Only when the Pharaoh who did not know Joseph came to power did he make Jacob’s descendants slaves.

Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ received asylum as a baby in Africa (Matthew 2:13-23), when King Herod, the ruler of the Roman empire who was anti-Jesus Christ, wanted to kill him as a baby. He was saved thanks to the dream in which Joseph was warned by God to flee to Egypt with Jesus and his mother. Otherwise, Jesus Christ would not have aged and certainly Christianity would not have existed. Jesus Christ had disciples (72) and apostles (12). Africans were part of this selection made by Jesus Christ.

Mark the evangelist
Mark the evangelist who wrote one of the first gospels was African. He was at the cradle of what are today called Orthodox churches, especially the Coptic Church in Egypt.

Simon of Cyrene
Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross for Jesus Christ to Calvary when Jesus could no longer carry it was African. In doing so, he assisted Jesus Christ to complete His saving work: the cross by which the world was saved.

Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo, who made the Roman Catholic Church into the Latin Church, was African. To this day, his mark on the Latin Church is noticeable and palpable. He has influenced Roman Catholic liturgy, ethics and morality to this day. Even the celibate life for priests is due to him. Unfortunately, the church has not properly understood Augustine’s African cultural formation and education. The church did not introduce the celibate lifestyle until centuries after Augustine’s death. The way the church introduced it was not how Augustine intended it from his African spiritual practice and grounding. The celibate life is intrinsically beneficial and extraordinarily fruitful. Augustinus lived the examplary life with celibacy. Its misuse is harmful and inhumane. It acts like a fire that you can use for good or for evil.

Abbot Anthony the Great
The first monastic and monastic order of the Christian Church was founded by Abbot Anthony the Great (or Anthony of Egypt) in the desert of Egypt. After several centuries, the abbot Benedict took this example of monastic life, brought it to Europe, and applied it for monastics living in a city. He brought monastic life to the city.
To this day, Anthony of Egypt is the father of all Christian monastics (monks).

We could go on and on: there is a long list of stories of Africans who were involved in true life in Jesus Christ and in relation to God’s Kingdom, They are also recorded in the Bible and church history. In short, Africa was intensely involved in the roots of the people of God and also of Christianity. Christianity is a religion that Africans recognize in their heart and soul.

The Christian religion that was partly responsible for slave trade and colonialism is the European Christian religion. It is clear from the narrative of the exhibition Christianity and Slavery that the fraught history of colonialism and slavery is not a legacy of the Dutch church per se, but a legacy of broader European Christianity. The exhibition is a good way to see and begin to understand this narrative clearly in one hour.

African Christianity is divorced from this legacy.
As a person of African descent, I do not embrace this Christian heritage, and fortunately it is not the source of African Christianity. Just as one is supposed to distance oneself from certain religiously motivated acts of violence or senseless violence, Christians of African descent distance themselves from this fraught European Christian heritage. History exempts African Christians from that legacy.

The Christian religion is not the religion of slave traders and slave owners.
In fact, the question is whether the European Christian church was truly Christian?

Prosperity & mission
From the late 15th century and beyond came first the Portuguese and later other European Christian nations with their spirit of trade. Colonialism, slave trade and any form of economic exploitation were the result, from economic motives and to pay for their own wars against their fellow christian brothers, among other things. They were not concerned with proclaiming the gospel and certainly not with the kingdom of God that Jesus Christ proclaimed and for which He gave His life.
The Roman Catholic and Protestant Christian brothers war in Europe was continued by missionaries of both denominations in Africa. They destroyed each other’s church buildings, schools, hospitals and many other projects. Africans remember this encounter with European Christianity.
The church fathers of African descent had already successfully and fruitfully sown the pure message of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The joy and gladness of faith was present. In the deepest core of some African believers you can see the basic attitude of the joyful message of God’s Kingdom.

For further reading see

Genesis chapters 46-50

Matthew 2:13-23 Joseph and Mary and Jesus flight to Egypt in Africa

Simon of Cyrene (Matt 27:32). (Mark 15:21). (Luke 23:26). Cyrene is located in Libya in Africa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_the_Great

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustinus_van_Hippo