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African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation is unavailable, but you can change that!

The letters of Paul—especially the verse in Ephesians directing slaves to obey their masters—played an enormous role in promoting slavery and justifying it as a Christian practice. Yet despite this reality African Americans throughout history still utilized Paul extensively in their own work, responding to his theology and teachings in numerous—often starkly divergent and liberative—ways. In the...

The disruptive nature of the gospel is evident in the enslaved Africans’ powerful argument that slavery and Christianity are irreconcilable. How do these enslaved Africans argue for this incompatibility? They utilize Pauline language. Echoing Paul’s call in Galatians 6:2 to believers to “Bear ye one another’s burdens,”22 they forcefully declare that slavery prevents the fulfillment of the apostle’s words. By placing burdens upon enslaved Africans and creating the heavy chains of slavery and oppression,
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