A reading of Galatians 5 and its impact on Christians in the Anlo traditional area.

Abstract

The study concerns a reading of Galatians 5 and practices and its appropriation for Christians in the Anlo Traditional Area. The chosen text deals with a situation of intra-religious debate between two religious beliefs and practices - Judaism and the Christian faith. The text is appropriated to the context of Anlo Christians who usually clash with the traditional rulers during the ban on drumming and general noise making. The Tri-Polar Exegetical Model as developed by Draper (2001) was employed for the study. The Contextual Bible Study Methodology by West (1993) was adopted for the contextualization of the text. The literary critical tool was used for the Distantiation (exegesis) of the text which has a structure of six divisions. The Distantiation of the text under the six divisions brought about six ideas: freedom from ethnic or religious laws (verses 1 t 6), legalism and freedom (verses 1 to 6), lawful and lawless people (verses 7 to 12), love for humanity and freedom (verses 13-15), freedom in Christ abhors fleshly desires (verses 19-21) and fruit of the spirit and freedom (verses 22-26). These ideas were used for the Contextual Bible Study (C.B.S) involving participants from seven different denominations of the Anloga local council of churches. The study group came up with the resolution that although the ban contravenes their religious beliefs and practices, its observance will not negatively affect their Christian worship. This birthed action plans for both individual and social transformation as a way of resolving the annual clashes in the period of the ban during the ‘Hogbetsotso’ Festival of the Anlo people.