From Lydia Bean, Friends of Justice board member:

We don’t usually get all theological on this blog—we try to keep it relevant to people from all faiths and no faith—but I was inspired at church today to write a post about the Bible and justice.

At church today, my pastor started a four-part sermon series on the book of Philemon. During the service, I started reading Paul’s letter to Philemon with new eyes. This book of the Bible is a one-page personal letter from the apostle Paul to a fellow Christian named Philemon. Paul is writing on behalf of a slave named Onesimus, who ran away from Philemon and then developed a close relationship with Paul. Paul is writing Philemon to ask him to take Onesimus back into his household—not as a slave, but as a free man.

Growing up, I didn’t like the book of Philemon, because it seemed like Paul was asking nicely for Philemon to free his slave—as if freeing a slave was just an act of charity, rather than non-negotiable obedience to God’s standards of justice. During slavery, this letter was twisted by southern white Christians to show that the early church had made its peace with slavery, that owning human beings as property was consistent with Christian discipleship, as long as you treated your slaves with paternalistic kindness. How should Christians today read the book of Philemon in the United States, in a country with a painful history of slavery? (more…)