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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...

Here one sees Hammon’s veiled attack upon whites in his audience who are rich and have the gospel but remain lost. The alteration that Hammon makes to Paul’s words cannot be overstated, for this change coheres with the gospel parable (Luke 14:15–24) he echoes right after this Pauline passage. In Hammon’s reading of this parable, the wealthy that God invited to the feast refused the invitation, so others were called in their stead. Hammon views his current situation as similar to that of the parable:
Pages 48–49
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