A Concession and Correction
A careful and caring reader raised a question about my last blog post, “The Limits of Freedom.” She gave me permission to identify her by her initials and to respond to her comments and criticism. Her point was well taken. It deserves a response.
SK lives in Virginia, which means that she witnesses firsthand the devastating consequences of slavery, segregation, and racism. Her experience in that part of the world made her acutely—and wisely—sensitive to the last line of the post: “I am free—in Christ. I am a slave—to Christ. I am called to use freedom for the good of others,” after which I pleaded with readers to wear masks.
As she put it, that last “catchy phrase” was “tone-deaf” to the “current climate here in the South.” As a representative of white, male, middle-class America, I wield a great deal of social power, she wrote, which can make me oblivious to those groups that have historically suffered and continue to suffer oppression because of the color of their skin.
Those of us living in the Pacific Northwest are exposed to ongoing racism and injustice, too. But our history of racism is different, equally heinous but less visible. The experience of just one group—First Nation peoples—is evidence enough of these crimes against humanity.
Should I have used the word “slave” in my post? It is, after all, a biblical word. As Paul writes, we are quite literally to consider ourselves slaves to Jesus, which leads to true freedom.
Yes, but only under very specific conditions.
First, it is imperative that we recognize and acknowledge the impact of social location and status. Over the past many centuries white, western, educated males have functioned as the dominant members of society and interpreters of the Bible. Our social location affects how we read and interpret the Bible. We overlook—or misinterpret—more of it than we would like to acknowledge because it falls so far outside our experience. We don’t understand what it means to be captives (slaves!), to wander as nomads, to face oppression, to suffer persecution, to live in poverty, and so much more. If anything, we often inflict these ills on others, as history itself shows.
It is easy to use the phrase “slave to Christ” because we have never been slaves, nor have we had to endure a lifetime of racism and oppression.Second, it is important that we recognize the weighty responsibility that rests on the shoulders of teachers. Language is rarely neutral. The meaning of words is often highly charged, easily misunderstood, and subject to change over time.
In the ancient Mediterranean world most slaves—really, household servants—often held positions of power, and they could win their freedom, too. How we understand the word “slave” today, however, is informed by American system of slavery, which captured free people from their homeland in Africa, sold them to the highest bidder, separated husbands from wives and parents from children, and treated them as if they were animals.
Teachers are responsible to explain context, given how culture evolves over time, historical circumstances change, and words come to mean something different. “Slave” is a good case in point.
It is easy to be tone-deaf about many things in the Bible. Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ.” There was a good chance that people reading or hearing that letter knew that they were potential martyrs. It is highly unlikely that any of us will ever suffer martyrdom. If anything, our experience as disciples of Jesus has worked mostly to our advantage, which changes how we understand Galatians 2:20.
Which reminds me of how important it is to learn from people who come from very different backgrounds. No voice, however important, should sing solo in the body of Christ. Having just read Esau McCaulley’s Reading While Black, I continue to discover how much I can learn from people whose social location and cultural experience is very different from my own. They read the same Bible as I do, but they read it differently because they are different people. They illumine the Bible in a way I could not otherwise see.
Thanks to SK for writing to me.