Slavery and Community in the 1st Century C. E.: A Reading of the Letter to Philemon and Its Contextual Implications

Abstract

ABSTRACT The quest to incarnate Christianity in a multi-cultural society—to contend with dilemmas of modern slavery—has called for an interpretation of the Bible able to respect the text and engage with the culture. Given the interpretative challenges the Letter of Philemon poses to biblical scholarship, the study set out to analyse the text as a ‘rhetorical discourse’ situated in the socio-economic context of the 1st Century CE and to identify the insights that may be gained from the comprehension and appropriation of the text in the contemporary Ghanaian context where different forms of modern slavery are still present and often justified as part of the traditional culture. The study employed the tri-polar exegetical model of African contextual interpretation as its theoretical framework to bridge the gap between the academic and popular reading of the biblical text and thereby make Scripture ‘relevant’ in the Ghanaian community. Empirical data was collected through personal interviews and secondary data were retrieved from journals, legal documents as well as institutional policies and reports on modern slavery in Ghana. The findings revealed that modern forms of slavery are incompatible with the Christian faith and Ghana’s legal system, yet the menace is wide present and tolerated in our Christian communities. The study also discovered Christocentric values and actions indispensable for subverting abusive master servant relationships. Accordingly, the study calls on Ghanaian contemporary churches to employ advocacy and diplomacy to denounce any hidden form of modern slavery in the community as part of their socio-religious responsibility. In particular, religious leaders should partner with frontline institutions in the fight against modern slavery.