Thursday, February 28, 2008

Reading for Freedom

Professor of New Testament

Exodus 32:1-4
Galatians 5:1
February 22, 2008

This service in celebration of African American History Month includes readings and songs exploring the relationship between the Bible, religion, and slavery. The sermon, beginning at minute 22 of the recording, contrasts the hermeneutic of slaveholders with that of the slaves who sang the spirituals, and argues that when our ways of interpreting scripture do not move God’s people forward on the way to freedom, they are moving us backward toward the idols we once served. We are then “submitting again to a yoke of slavery”—the very thing Paul warned us not to do (Gal. 5:1). Hearers are exhorted to preach as one who is free and who, like Harriet Tubman, the Moses of her people, leads others out of bondage and into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Listen to the service. Read the sermon in PDF.