No Longer Slaves: Galatians and African American Experience

by Brad Ronnell Braxton

No Longer Slaves brings the ancient New Testament message into conversation with African American culture. Twenty centuries after Paul penned Galatians, American culture in general and American Christianity in particular continue to struggle with the problem of race relations. Our challenges are not identical to those faced by Paul and the Galatians. Yet, when one reads Galatians through the lens of African American experience, striking similarities emerge. In No Longer Slaves , Brad Braxton helps us see that race relations is a central issue in Galatians. Paul believes that Christ came in order to unite Jews and Gentiles. The church was intended to be amulti-ethnic community in which persons of different backgrounds co-existed harmoniously. Any effort to compel Gentiles to live as Jews is an invalidation of the freedom of the Gospel. Galatians offers us a portrait of an early Christian leader and community sorting out complex social issues. No Longer Slaves explores the concept of liberation in African American experience. It entails a discussion of American slavery. Rather than depicting African Americans simply as victims of the crimes of slavery and segregation, Braxton describes the creative cultural and religious responses of African Americans to their oppression. He employs a type of reader-response theory that considers the experiences of the reading community as a lens through which texts are read. His discussion of methodology exposes the reader to some of the issues in the current debate without becoming burdensome to the non-specialist. The remainder of the book is an interpretation of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Although Braxton takes seriously the original context of Galatians and his exegesis engages the Greek text, he offers a contemporary theological reading that privileges the history, experiences, and concerns of African Americans. Those who are concerned about the connection between Christianity and ethnicity will find this interpretation intriguing and challenging. Chapters in Liberation and African American Experience are Introduction," *Liberation: Rationales and Definitions, - *Blackness: Biology and Ideology, - and *African American Biblical Interpretation. - Chapters in A Reading Strategy for Liberation are *Reader-Response Criticism and Black and Womanist Theologies, - *The Bible and Authority in Reader-Response Criticism, - and *The African American (Christian) Interpretive Community. - Chapters in Galatians and African American Experience are *Introduction, - *Historical Overview, - Interpretations, - and *Conclusion. - Includes a bibliography. Brad Ronnell Braxton, PhD, is the Jessie Ball DuPont Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Biblical Studies at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is an ordained Baptist minister and for five years served as Senior Pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore, Maryland. "

Genres: Religion, Biblical Studies

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I use this book as a text in my Romans and Galatians class at Howard Div.

[David S Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Nearly two thousand years ago Paul told a group of Christian converts that they were no longer slaves. As history would have it, another group of people, children of the African Diaspora resident on American soil, would encounter Paul’s declaration of independence and earnestly attempt to decipher his words in light of their physical and ideological slave experience.” (p. 111)

This is a book on Galatians written by a scholar - so while being aimed at a popular audience it is heavy at points. However, it is worth the read for anyone interested in approaching a biblical text from a perspective other than that of a white person. FYI: My doctoral work was in Galatians so I a) love reading about Galatians; b) can be a little blinkered in assessing the accessibility of Galatians focussed books; but c) still think that Braxton has written about some complex ideas in a really good way.

Using a reader response approach, informed by his African-American experience, Braxton offers many illuminating perspectives on reading Galatians that serve to fulfil his aim of exemplifying the validity of his reading as a critical approach to the letter and also showing how a communal reading of the text is expansive and not reductionist as is sometimes suggested. It should be noted that his chapter on reader-response approaches would help many Christians make some sense of what it means to believe in scriptures authority or inspiration.

Patterning what is happening in Galatia, Braxton shows how modern white Bible readings have formed a version of the dominant ideology that Paul was resisting in the letter (an ideology that formed the sort of colonial reading of Paul in Galatians 4 that was hugely harmful to Africans). As he notes “African American history is replete with contemporary analogies to the Antioch event.

What Braxton shows is that Galatians still requires attention today as the curse of exclusion remains, while Paul’s liberative words of Galatians 3:28 invite us to abandon nor difference but dominance between peoples. Braxton’s reader is treated to a fresh reading of Galatians that (even though now 20 years old) shows why biblical texts such as Galatians still deserve attention today.

If you’ve read McCaulley’s “Reading While Black”, and are interested to explore biblical text through a similar method, then this is a worthwhile read for you.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for class. This was an absolutely excellent primer on Galatians from an African-American experience. It made me look at the rhetoric of this letter in an entirely different light. I can see myself returning to this book to prepare sermons in the future. A thought-provoking and fascinating read.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used this in my New Testament class and Galatians studies.

[Larrin Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource for those interested in biblical interpretation through the lens of African American experience. With a close-enough read, one is able to see how to not only interpret but also how to preach and/or teach with this same perspective.