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.
